Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The danger of walking down the middle of the road is that one runs the risk of getting knocked down on both sides. Of course, it is also not a sustainable position because at some time one has to decide to go to one side or the other. That is the problem for Fianna Fáil tonight. Everything that party said acknowledges that it does not have confidence in the Commissioner and senior management but it is falling short of calling for something that would deal with this situation. It is not good enough.

It is astounding for the Minister for Justice and Equality to come in here and talk about these issues as populism masquerading as reform. The reason we are in this situation is precisely because the Government chose not to take the politics out of policing when it had the chance. Legislation was repeatedly tabled by DeputyMick Wallace to have a genuinely independent policing authority and the Commissioner to be accountable to it and not to the Minister. However, the Government and its former allies in the Labour Party, who have now had a Damascus-like conversion, voted and argued against it, and sadly Fianna Fáil did as well. That is what we are paying the price for now. It is unfinished business.

It is ironic that we listen today to the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors state it was upset about the discussions in the Dáil around policing issues. I did not hear it being quite so upset about its whistle-blowing members when they were being vilified and demonised. The problem is that all it takes for evil to survive is for good men to stay silent and do nothing. There are deep cultural problems but they have to be tackled from the top.

The Commissioner's intervention today around referring cases to GSOC was wholly inappropriate when that type of systemic abuse of the breath test could not possibly be down to individuals; it is a systems failure. It is about time we dealt with it.

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