Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This is all very strange because it another case of déjà vu. The Labour Party is now proposing a root and branch review of An Garda Síochána, having voted against such a review in government when we made a similar proposal. Some of this goes back before my time. According to the 2015 report from the Garda Inspectorate, a significant number of the recommendations in its report had been made in one form or another over the past two decades. This takes us back to Fianna Fáil whose position is that it is unable to express confidence in the Commissioner and would remove her if it was in government. However, the party has also indicated it will not support a motion requiring the Government to do exactly that.

As a result of the Government's rejection of root and branch, Patten style reform, the Commissioner is answerable to the Minister for Justice and Equality rather than an independent policing authority with real powers. The Government is not approaching this issue as it should, nor did it deal with the case of the previous Minister for Justice and Equality, Mr. Alan Shatter, and previous Garda Commissioner as it should have. I do not have any great confidence that it will approach this issue properly.

While we were told the Cabinet was briefed on the establishment of a commission to examine the future of policing, we were not told whether this came from the Cabinet committee on justice reform. Did the committee discuss this issue at its meeting of 7 March? The Taoiseach does not even have a date for the next meeting of the committee.

This is a case of "I told you so" because the previous Government dismissed our proposal in the most defensive, triumphalist and dismissive way when it had a large majority and did not have to listen to Sinn Féin or anyone else in opposition. Now the decent members of An Garda Síochána and those who depend on them to keep the peace and keep us safe have been let down.

See this speech in context