Niall Collins (Limerick, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We welcome the intent of the Bill. My party supports the principle of the establishment of an independent policing authority. We have discussed that recently in regard to the Guerin report.

I have some comments that are relevant to the Bill. We have just had a local election that gave us all an opportunity to engage more with the public than we ordinarily do outside an election period. The Minister's colleague, Deputy McHugh, made a point on Garda stations in rural communities. I echo this point because it came home to me quite forcibly when canvassing in parts of my rural constituency that people, particularly the elderly living in isolated places, are most concerned about crime. It would be very beneficial for us all if the new Minister took a position on the closure of Garda stations. We have had a long-running and quite contentious debate in this House on the programme for the closure of stations across the country. As the Minister knows, up to 140 have been closed. We need to rethink this and the Government needs to adopt a position on it.

The Government needs to give serious thought to the effect of early retirement from the force. Some of those who are retiring have the option to work for another couple of years. Most leave the force at the first available opportunity, which poses a fierce challenge. While I acknowledge that recruitment and training have recommenced and that it will take a while for this to have an effect on the system at the intake point, I must draw attention to the large exodus of ability, experience and intelligence. This is hampering the capacity of the force to investigate crime, protect victims of crime and, I hope, help these victims to achieve justice through the criminal justice system. This needs to be factored into the approach of the Government. There is a very multifaceted approach to An Garda Síochána at present. Everybody in this House supports it. We are all on the one page and that is to be welcomed.

With regard to the establishment of the proposed independent policing authority, we support the Bill. I have noted that the Minister has stated the Government is not opposing the legislation, which I welcome. As the Minister knows, the justice committee is undertaking work in this regard. She alluded to the fact that we are travelling to Belfast and Scotland. The trip is scheduled for the second week of July. We are to meet the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland and representatives of the PSNI, and then we are to meet the two relevant bodies in Scotland. This will go a long way towards informing me and other members of the committee about how exactly we should structure the board of the new independent policing authority. Tomorrow we are to have another round of hearings. The acting Garda Commissioner and Ms Nuala O’Loan are to present their views tomorrow and I look forward to that engagement.

We have a great opportunity to reinvigorate the force. The engagement I have had with the Garda over the past three to four weeks, since the broad acceptance of the principle of the establishment of an independent policing authority and its being placed on top of the political agenda, has demonstrated to me that members of the force have almost entirely welcomed the initiative. It is very good that there is such buy-in throughout all ranks.

As a consequence of the closure of the Garda stations, there was a promise that the Garda would roll out mobile Garda clinics utilising community facilities. I raised this with the Minister's predecessor, Deputy Shatter. He did not express much interest in following through on it. I tabled a number of parliamentary questions and the information I required was not available. As part of the reassurance to communities, we need to examine seriously how the areas in which Garda stations have been closed have been compensated through the provision of the service promised at the time of closure.

We are all on the one page with regard to the position of GSOC. In my name I published for my party a Bill that seeks to enhance the powers of GSOC to give it what it has been looking for. There has to be greater mutual acceptance involving GSOC and the Garda Síochána. When we questioned representatives of GSOC recently at the justice committee, they still said they were meeting resistance from some people within the force when carrying out their work. There is obviously friction but there has to be oversight. In our profession, there is oversight. There is oversight in pretty much all organisations; it is a fact of life. We may not like it and we may crib about it but we must have it. That is the way of the world. We need to be able to ensure that both bodies can work efficiently. Ultimately, having issues dragging on for years is not good enough. We must not allow the continuation of circumstances in which one agency of the State frustrates another when both are mandated by the Houses on behalf of the people to serve the public. Collectively, we must make every effort to ensure that one does not frustrate the other and that the two complement each other. That will be difficult to achieve but we should bear in mind that the bodies exist to serve the public interest.

In the main, my party supports the Bill, although there is a lot of detail we have to consider. The Minister said in her contribution that the issue of State security needs to be teased out, and it is an issue that came up at hearings with some of the groups that have come before the justice committee to date.

I will conclude on that point. We support the broad principles of the Bill and we are happy for it to proceed. However, we would have some concerns and we would seek to amend some details if it were to progress further.

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