Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I will speak to the amendment in my name and that of my Labour Party colleagues. In doing so, I want to concentrate on the many areas on which I believe we have broad agreement in this House. We were all disturbed at the news that 145,000 District Court summonses for road traffic fixed charges were wrongly issued, which is an astonishing number, and that 14,700 of those resulted in convictions and penalties being wrongfully imposed by the courts. These now have to be undone and we still do not have any word on how that will happen.

Hand in hand came news that the Garda Síochána can no longer stand over its own data relating to roadside breath tests. It withdrew the figures because they are irreconcilable with data provided by the Medical Bureau of Road Safety from its breath test device database. This revelation completely undermines the national road safety strategy. Mandatory alcohol testing has been a key feature of the strategy going back 2007. Determining the incidence of drink driving using data collected at the point of enforcement has been a specific target of that strategy for a decade. As the RSA’s chief executive, Moyagh Murdock, said, the absence of credible and reliable enforcement metrics, such as the numbers of drivers being breath tested, makes it almost impossible to evaluate and measure the effectiveness of road safety interventions. The scale of the discrepancy between PULSE records showing 1.995 million breath tests and Medical Bureau of Road Safety records showing 1.058 million tests, almost 1 million of a difference, beggars belief.

We are all in this House dissatisfied at the ongoing inability of the Garda administration to provide any explanation, although it has been seized of this for a very considerable period, as to how there could be such a catastrophic failure in the performance of its statutory duty. We all agree these revelations are merely the latest in a series of controversies which together have undermined public confidence in the ability and credibility of Garda management. In particular, Garda management has shown no ability to respond effectively to the modernisation agenda being championed by the Garda Inspectorate. The inspectorate has very aptly described the Garda as “an ineffective structure, struggling to cope with modem demands”. It has characterised the current Garda culture as inhibiting change and has expressed frustration, as we all have, that so many of the inspectorate's key recommendations have just not been acted upon.

All this has happened notwithstanding a major legislative overhaul back in 2005, including the setting up of both GSOC and the inspectorate. The more we dig, however, the more we discover that these were all just legislative platitudes and signalled no fundamental change at all. The net result of all of this is that most of the public, and most Members of this House, including the Deputies that sit behind the Minister and many of those who sit beside her, do not have confidence in the management of An Garda Síochána.

The problem is not just a "cultural" one, which is the term the Garda Commissioner has used so often. The problem is a structural one. I say that with hesitation because the statutory structure is a complex one. We have various satellite bodies orbiting around An Garda Síochána, each with its own board and officers, its own functions, mission statement, strategy statement, five-year plans and annual plans. We have GSOC to look at complaints, the Garda Inspectorate to look at best practice, the Policing Authority to oversee performance and the Minister to secure eventual accountability. However, amidst this plethora of bodies and functions, what is increasingly clear is the one thing we do not have. We do not have any body with the power, the duty and the capacity to bring senior Garda management into the modern age - an age in which effectiveness and efficiency, and openness, transparency and accountability, are not only expected but actually delivered; an age in which targets are publicly and clearly set and delivered upon; and an age in which those who fall short are identified and held to account. What we do not yet have, but what we urgently need, is a body that can direct the Garda Commissioner to adopt the inspectorate's reports and implement them, and that can issue written directives to the Commissioner to take specified steps, within specific timelines, to implement specific changes.

Again, a majority of us agree that we need as a first and immediate step to change the law. We need to give the Policing Authority the clearly necessary power to take this matter in hand and sort it out now. In other words, we need to give the Policing Authority actual authority. We need to vest it with the statutory power to publish a radical reform programme, based on the recommendations of the Garda Inspectorate, and the statutory power to make directions to Garda management in implementing this programme. We need more. There will be no once-off, quick-fix solution to this real and substantial crisis in public confidence. No two crises are ever identical and no two solutions should be identical either. We do not need Chris Patten and we do not need to borrow from his terms of reference and the work of his commission. We need a policing review, however, under an independent commission that is both radical and comprehensive. I had a chance, at a very basic level, to read the draft terms of reference circulated this afternoon. On first reading, they appear to be comprehensive. We will, of course, revert to the Tánaiste with more detailed consideration once we have examined the terms of reference in detail.

I agree that we now need fundamental change. The public expects this. We need more transparency, accountability and professionalism because the nature of crime is changing. The notion that we can do things now as we did in 1928 is fundamentally wrong.

I agree with the point made earlier that it is regrettable that the Tánaiste did not find the time to meet representatives of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors at its conference. I understand the demands on her time but her action will be seen as a mistake and as distancing herself from a workforce that is actually under incredible pressure. It was a misjudgment and one she should seek to amend. I am glad the association is in agreement with so many of us here in arguing that many of our problems might not have arisen had the really detailed recommendations of the Garda Inspectorate been implemented.

There is a final matter on which I believe we can all agree. This should be the last time we gather collectively to express dismay and disbelief over the latest revelations of mismanagement in An Garda Síochána. There must be no more piecemeal reactions on the hoof and no more seeking to minimise the damage or seek ad hocsolutions in a way described by Deputy Jim O'Callaghan as always looking in the rearview mirror. I am cautious in calling for something as hackneyed as "root and branch reform" as it is a phrase that jars with many, but I believe we need an examination of Garda structures and processes that is sufficiently thorough and far-reaching and a commitment to embrace the changes that follow, that we can say we have put an end to our fire-brigade-style response to successive Garda crises and that we have resolved once and for all to do the job we have been sent here to do and restore public confidence in the administration and carrying out of policing in the State.

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