Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The 28th amendment to the Constitution approved by the people in October 2009 allowed Ireland to ratify the Lisbon treaty. That amendment changed Article 29 of the Constitution and expressly allowed Ireland to exercise options or discretions under Protocol No. 21 of the European treaty. Protocol No. 21 of the treaty allows Ireland and the United Kingdom to opt out of a number of the treaty's provisions governing security, policing and justice, but to our benefit, Article 4 of Protocol No. 21 allows Ireland to opt into some measures adopted by our European partners in respect of policing, security and justice, without the British so doing. This is what we seek to exercise here today because on 23 November 2015, the Council and European Parliament adopted Regulation (EU) 2015/2219, which enhances the operational mandate of CEPOL and reforms its governance. The general objective of the regulation is to improve EU security through the implementation by CEPOL of a new training approach for EU police and customs officers. The regulation was implemented on 1 July 2016. Under Article 29 of the Constitution, a resolution must be approved by both Houses of the Oireachtas if we wish to opt into a provision under Protocol No. 21. Fianna Fáil will support the motion before the House, as it will be of benefit to policing both in Ireland and in Europe.

It also is worth pointing out that we should be concentrating on the importance of education and improving excellence in our policing service as well as considering how it operates in a European context. Policing has become an extremely complex and difficult profession. If one considers some changes that have taken place in the area of criminality and the issues the Garda must investigate, one will note it has become a difficult and demanding profession. I will give examples of three recent changes that impose great demands on An Garda Síochána and which illustrate why it is so important to have greater training for the Garda and to seek to emphasise the importance of further training and education in An Garda Síochána. I refer first to the increasing complexity of certain financial crimes. It now is apparent that certain white collar crimes are of such financial complexity it is necessary to have great expertise to investigate them. We must have expertise in both forensic accounting and company law to be able to trace some of the alleged white collar crimes that take place. A second example of recent change is the use of the Internet, particularly in crimes against children. This requires great and increased levels of expertise in information technology and in how to examine computers. Finally, historic complaints require understanding on the part of An Garda Síochána that there must be an appreciation of the psychology as to why people legitimately take their time and delay in making complaints because of the impact the offence may have had upon them.

All these issues illustrate that policing is a demanding profession, and to improve it, we must place greater emphasis in Ireland on the requirement to improve the educational standards and expertise of An Garda Síochána. This perhaps could be done in three ways and I acknowledge they may be seeking to expand this in Europe and some European countries already allow for this. We first must improve and expand the professional development of An Garda Síochána in order that its members who seek to go on to do third level studies and who obtain third level qualifications are facilitated in so doing and derive benefit from so doing. Second, we must consider graduate recruitment into An Garda Síochána. While graduates are entitled to be recruited into An Garda Síochána, they derive no benefit from being recruited as a graduate. In other countries, there is some fast-track promotion for those who enter at a starting level and who have the benefit of a graduate degree. If a graduate degree is beneficial and useful, it should be of some benefit in a person's promotion up through the force. Third, we must also consider recruitment of people from other police forces, as well as members of the Garda Reserve. Many Irish gardaí went overseas and got jobs in Canadian police forces and a recruitment method is needed whereby they can be taken back in to the force at a sufficiently high level. All these measures emphasise the ongoing importance of education within An Garda Síochána and for this reason, Fianna Fáil will support this motion as we believe the European college of police is essential to improve the development of police forces throughout Europe.

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