Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

The Minister alluded earlier to the fact that she will be tabling some other amendments to deal with GSOC in the context of the imminent Garda authority legislation. The UN Human Rights Committee, in its periodic review last summer, made the point that there is an urgent need for Ireland to deal with this issue and strengthen the independence of GSOC while ensuring that the Garda authority marries in with and complements the project. This batch of amendments seeks to insert the Garda authority into the role of overseeing the Garda Commissioner and the Garda Síochána. It is to remove the ministerial block on some of the investigations and analysis which could go to GSOC, and instead have that power transferred from the Minister to the Garda authority.

Under the forthcoming Garda Síochána (policing authority and miscellaneous provisions) Bill, the Minister will be proposing to make the Garda Commissioner accountable to the authority in a certain sense, but also to the Minister. It is unfair to make the Garda Commissioner accountable to the authority without giving the authority sufficient powers to be able to enforce this accountability. How can the Garda authority hold the Commissioner to account when the Commissioner's position is, in effect, protected by the Minister who appoints her or him? Although the ultimate sanction of removal exists, the Commissioner can only be removed by the Government.

The issue we touched on earlier concerning the unique position of the Garda Commissioner as head of policing and head of security is a problem when we look at investigations. Under the heads of the Garda Síochána (policing authority and miscellaneous provisions) Bill, the Minister is the final arbiter on many of these things including a discrepancy on whether an issue should be considered as a policing matter or a security matter. We believe the Minister would have an interest in these scenarios and it is not a fair way of dealing with it. A right wing Government such as this one could, for example, view the protest that took place around May Day, the water charges protests or the Shell to sea protests as national security issues rather than policing issues and therefore block investigations. If the Minister is really talking about transforming the Garda Síochána into a modern police service, the only way that is going to work is to have a very substantial Garda authority which has the power to call the shots. That Garda authority would have to be the vehicle to feed into GSOC, which would consider any complaints.

That is really what these amendments seek to provide. We will have to table a considerable number of amendments to the Garda Síochána (policing authority and miscellaneous provisions) Bill because based on the heads of Bill, what the Minister is proposing is far from what is necessary. We will be reverting back to many of the measures proposed by Deputy Wallace when he moved his Bill on the same subject previously.

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