Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

On behalf of the Green Party I extend our sympathies to the family of Captain Duffy on their tragic loss and commend him on his heroism in the work that he and the other members of the Coast Guard have done.

It was interesting watching the Garda Commissioner in the Oireachtas committee this morning, and I have a number of questions for the Minister on the Government's position. This mess must be cleaned up. Has the Government considered, or will it consider, legislative changes to deal with those wrongful 14,700 convictions? Rather than have to go to court on an individual case-by-case basis which would clog up our courts and be hugely expensive and difficult for the litigants involved, could we not introduce a legislative amendment where all 14,700 would be scheduled and listed as an amendment to the legislation? This would allow for them to be quashed in a single legislative move, which would then allow us to move on to fix the redress which might arise in any particular cases. Has the Government considered such a legislative provision in its Cabinet meeting this week so that we at least deal with those cases in a timely, quick, cheap and efficient manner?

A key question I have concerns the Government's decision that the way to respond to this is another inquiry into the future of the Garda. What is the purpose of such an inquiry when we have the likes of the Olson report, completed in November 2015, entitled Changing Irish Policing, which to my reading gives a very clear analysis of the difficulties we have and gives very clear direction on what needs to be done? Why are we commissioning yet more studies into what might be done when we have, it seems to me, a perfectly well-written, incisive, articulate and clear report that could very quickly provide us with a range of actionable items? It is particularly shocking that Deputy Commissioner Twomey, in the last meeting of the Policing Authority, said that one of the main recommendations in terms of employing staff in Castlebar on the data communications system has not yet been put in place. It was also shocking to hear the Commissioner say this morning that she has only now got the team she needs in place in terms of additional assistant commissioners. What is it in the public administrative system that is restricting us from being able to be flexible and fast in terms of moving people around and putting people in the right positions? Especially in this case the public system seems unable to provide this flexibility. I do not know whether it is a Garda problem or whether it applies to other areas of the public service. Why is it still taking us a year or two to get there? What both Deputy Commissioner Twomey and Commissioner O'Sullivan said is that they could not do it because they did not have authorisation to employ the necessary people. Why is our public administrative system so slow to put the people in the right place?

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