Shane Ross (Dublin South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to move this Bill in front of the new Minister for Justice and Equality. I hope the response we get from the Minister, Deputy Fitzgerald, gives us a message of hope, reform and change and includes a major dismissal of the events of the past. We need a new departure in the Department of Justice and Equality, in the appointment of judges and in the appointment of the Garda Commissioner and other top gardaí. There is very little doubt that there is a contaminated culture in the Garda. It is evident in the review the Minister has already ordered. I have proposed this Bill, which relates to the appointment of top gardaí, in the full knowledge that such appointments may be flawed and that the contaminated culture to which I refer has unfortunately spread beyond the people this Bill actually addresses.

The reason for the crisis of confidence in the Garda has been clearly illustrated by recent events. This Bill begs certain questions. I refer not only to the questions of why the Commissioner resigned or was sacked, why the Minister resigned or why the Secretary General of the Department of Justice and Equality, Mr. Purcell, is now under a cloud, but also to the question of how these people, specifically the top gardaí, were actually appointed. Is this part of the cause of the crisis we are now facing in the administration of justice in this country? The Minister should make no mistake - there is no point in pretending otherwise - about the fact that the people have lost confidence in this country's top gardaí because of the behaviour of gardaí in recent times. It is no less a crisis than that. It is one which the Minister now faces. Part of this is due to the fact that there is an atmosphere of paranoia at the top of the Garda.

I would like to refer to some of my own experiences. I would be very sympathetic with the role of gardaí and what they have done. My own experience of contact with gardaí, as a journalist and as a politician, is that they immediately flee to the bunker when they are asked questions. I have experienced that over many years. I have experienced it even more recently in my role as a Deputy. When I asked the gardaí how much it costs to fund the Garda Commissioner's office, they pleaded security reasons and all sorts of bogus camouflage to explain why they could not answer that question. When I rang the Department of Justice and Equality today to ask about the process for the appointment of the new Garda Commissioner that is required, the first answer I got was "hold on, we will ring you back and we will see if we can reply". Why could the Department not reply to such a simple question? We have a right to know the answer. When they did reply, they said they wanted the question in writing. They knew and I knew that I needed an answer to the question by 7.30 this evening. It is now 7.30 p.m. and they have still not replied to this simple question. Where is the process? What is happening? We have a vacancy at the top of the Garda. We are entitled to know what the process is. We are entitled to a reply from the Department of Justice and Equality on it. I do not know what they thought I was asking - perhaps they thought there was hostility involved - but they went back into their bunker. Unfortunately, that is the attitude of the press office in the Department of Justice and Equality.

I received a similar type of response, one of hostility and paranoia, when I rang the Garda press office today. The person to whom I spoke was pretty defensive and referred me pretty quickly up to the Garda Commissioner's office. I got hold of a garda there who was anonymous. I was told it was an inappropriate question and I was referred to someone else who was more pleasant but did not give me an answer. That person referred me back to the Department of Justice and Equality, which has yet to reply. What is going on in justice in this country? One cannot get a response when one asks about the process being used to fill the most important position in the Garda. They cannot do it. They will not give an answer because they cannot get out of their bunker mentality. We should get answers to all of these questions now, when there is an actual vacancy to be filled. We should know what the process is, what the timetable is and how we will get a new Garda Commissioner.

I have introduced this Bill, which relates to appointments at the top of the Garda, because it is extremely opportune that legislation of this sort should be in place to reform the appointments of people at the top of the force before the next Garda Commissioner is appointed. I would like to know whether that process is already in train. We do not know what process is being followed. If a Bill like this were passed, we could quite easily have a new Commissioner by September. I do not know what the process is, but I do know there seems to be a problem. The cancer of cronyism at the top of this country's justice system is continuing. I say that with conviction and without appearing to engage in sensationalism. Several Bills relating to the appointment of judges have already been introduced in this House. The continuing cronyist culture in that regard in this country has not been addressed for many years. Every single judge is politically appointed.

It is only just emerging, on foot of the crisis we discovered in the Garda, that the top 200 - not the top two or three - gardaí are politically appointed. We have a kind of silence about it at the top. We need to see a dramatic and immediate change in order that people at the top of the gardaí are appointed in a new way. That needs to happen immediately. We should not countenance any delay in this regard. I anticipate that the Minister might well reply by saying "we are looking at this, we are very serious about it, we will do something about it, there will be a new system for the new Commissioner but it is going to take a certain amount of time". The figure I have just cited, that the top 200 gardaí are politically appointed, is pretty staggering, but I think it is worse than that. The system to which I refer is governed by the 2005 Act. How are all the other promotions decided? Are external interviews conducted? Is there a kind of incestuous relationship in which people who have done the right thing and who know the right people are appointed by their pals from above? It is a bit of a mystery, but it should not be.

The appointment of all top gardaí - indeed, all gardaí - should be subject to an open competition. This Bill seeks to end the absolutely indefensible system of politicians, that is, the Cabinet, appointing the top 200 gardaí and to introduce a new system which, although not perfect and certainly subject to amendment, is far preferable to the current system. We must have an open contest, which this Bill introduces, that is open to outsiders and will ensure the independence of the Garda Síochána. Gardaí, and top gardaí in particular, must be appointed on merit. As it stands, we have a system which was described in a recent Garda Revieweditorial as involving the selection of a winner by a hidden hand in what amounted to a three ball lottery system. This Bill attempts, in a constructive and cost neutral way, to address this problem by removing the Garda from public control. The result will be that gardaí, for the first time, will be appointed on merit.

The structure of appointments proposed in the Bill is very simple. At the top is the Top Level Appointments Committee, TLAC, which, after carrying out advertising and interviews, will recommend three individuals to a subsidiary board comprising three members of the Standards in Public Office Commission, SIPO, and two newly appointed members. This five member board will then recommend one individual to the Dáil. The beauty of this is that the TLAC is comprised mostly of civilians or outsiders. The Dáil, in turn, can accept or reject the recommended person, in which case a second individual will be recommended through the same process. A Dáil committee will be able to interview these candidates and make its own recommendation.

The advantage of this system is that the appointment is not a matter for decision by the Minister for Justice and Equality or any other member of the Cabinet. In other words, it does not become a nakedly political appointment. The procedure I have outlined applies in the case of the top three members of the Garda. Other top appointments, namely, those of chief superintendents and superintendents, will be made by the appointments board. Again, there is no ministerial involvement. In fact, it is a Minister-free zone. This takes the appointments process out of the political arena and puts it into an area far removed from the type of criticism directed towards it recently.

My reason for bringing forward this Bill is, quite simply, the huge controversies that have emerged recently. There can be no doubt whatsoever, from the controversies we have heard about, that there is something rotten in the Garda. The force needs, above all, to be removed from the political arena, and that is the essential principle upon which this Bill is pitched. The appointments process must be removed totally and utterly from the political arena and given to an external body which enjoys the public's respect. There is a difficulty here in that so many of those bodies have some element of political influence. It is very difficult to avoid that entirely, but this Bill represents a start. Its acceptance would be a recognition by the Minister that there is a terrible crisis at the top of the Garda. I hope and pray she does not come back with the response that this issue is being addressed by various bodies and we must await the outcome of this process. There is, at this very moment, a vacancy at the top of the Garda. This Bill could easily be passed by the House, with or without amendment, by the end of July. I ask the Minister to consider it and to consider also the issue of dismissals, which is included in the Bill. The dismissal of a Commissioner should only be possible with the permission of the Dáil. That function should not be in the political power of a Minister, because situations like this have been abused too much.

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