Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy McNamara and the Leas-Cheann Comhairle. I welcome this Bill. Members of An Garda Síochána should be allowed to be members of a trade union. They need better representation. At present, it is very difficult for them to challenge any element of perceived unfairness in their treatment.

Clearly, the current structures do not serve them well. I realise that there are the representative bodies, the GRA and the AGSI. However, our experience of dealing with many gardaí in recent years is that they do not feel well represented by the GRA or the AGSI. When they have a problem, most of them would not dream of going near the GRA, which seems just to represent itself rather than representing gardaí.

I was shocked to find out yesterday that the assistant commissioner, Mr. Fintan Fanning, felt obliged to go to the courts to address an issue he had when being interviewed for the deputy commissioner job. He claims that the Garda Commissioner, Ms Nóirín O’Sullivan, asked him to give his thoughts on extreme left-wing politics in Ireland and left-wing politicians. By all accounts Mr. Fanning was a bit shocked and felt it was a very unfair question. However, he does not really have anywhere to go other than to the courts with his complaint. One would imagine that things should be different.

A few months ago, I raised an issue in the Dáil. A new recruit to the Garda Síochána wrote to me complaining about being asked to start working on just over €23,000 a year. It is more than likely that a new garda will not be based in his own village. Even if he is single, the chances of him being able to remain living with his family are very slim. He will have difficulties with public transport. It is possible to get between big cities and big towns but if one starts crisscrossing anywhere else in Ireland, the public transport system is very disappointing. It would be very hard to imagine how any such garda would not need a car. More than likely he will need to rent accommodation somewhere. If a garda has to buy a car and rent accommodation, I do not know how he can be expected to survive on just over €23,000 a year. This should be addressed. However, they do not have anywhere to go with that, which is unfair.

Trade unions are allowed in Germany and Norway. It would be good for us to investigate how the Germans and Norwegians facilitate that without fear of disruption. Obviously any state would be afraid if there was not a policeman to be had because they were all out on strike. I understand they are not allowed to strike, but it means that police officers in Germany and Norway have far better representation than gardaí here.

Sadly, because many gardaí feel they do not have a body that really represents them, they have been coming to people such as me and Deputy Clare Daly. Hardly a week goes by without some gardaí coming to us with complaints. We are being ridiculed for raising some of these issues in the Parliament and we are being accused of abusing our parliamentary privilege, which is interesting. I got a very nasty letter from the GRA when I mentioned some issues going on with policing involving a publican in Kilkenny over a six-year period. However, the GRA did not seem to take note that after six years of unbelievable harassment of this publican, funnily enough the harassment has stopped since I raised it here. In addition, even though many of his complaints were beyond GSOC's time limitations, GSOC is upholding those complaints that were within time and is investigating them, which is good news.

I welcome Deputy McNamara's Bill. It is a subject that deserves some serious discussion and some serious thought on the part of the Government. I appreciate being let in even though we were late.

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