Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Howlin and acknowledge his long-standing interest in reform of An Garda Síochána. I also acknowledge the work he did in driving that forward in the previous Government. We had a chance at Cabinet this morning to discuss the recommendations of the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland. That was chaired, as Deputy Howlin knows, by Ms Kathleen O'Toole. We have agreed to accept the 157 recommendations, 136 in full and 21 in principle. There are some difficulties with those 21 recommendations. We are accepting them in principle but, for example, we do not agree that the Garda Commissioner could set pay because pay policy is centrally bargained. We could not have the Garda Commissioner setting pay and then not have school principals or hospital managers doing the same. We do have difficulty, therefore, with aspects of the report and there is some work to do.

It is a good report and a good opportunity to reform our police service to make it better than it has ever been. I believe now is a good opportunity because we have new leadership with the new Commissioner, we have a plan for reform from the O'Toole commission, and we have the resources in the form of an increasing budget for An Garda Síochána as well as increasing numbers of gardaí.

We are in a good place to bring about Garda reform and improvements in our policing service, particularly community policing. Part of the structural reform put forward is about strengthening GSOC, turning it into an independent police ombudsman with more resources and authority to investigate complaints about gardaí. It involves putting elements of the Policing Authority and the Garda Inspectorate together into a new oversight body called the policing and community oversight safety commission, PSOC. This will ensure it is not a case of oversight being diluted but of creating a new oversight body.

Crucial to the recommendations is that the Garda Commissioner should be allowed to become a true CEO of his or her organisation. Some people feel that in recent years it has been hard for the Garda Commissioner, whoever it is, to run the Garda because of accountability to the Garda Inspectorate, the Policing Authority, GSOC and the Departments of Public Expenditure and Reform and Justice and Equality. It is hard to do one’s job when one is accountable to five different bodies at different times. In any organisation, the chief executive officer is accountable to a board within the organisation. The O'Toole commission recommended we move to the type of structure where the Garda Commissioner can become a true CEO and run his or her own organisation but does not have a free hand to do whatever he or she likes. The commissioner will still be accountable to the Garda board and then to the structures above it.

This will require significant legislation and that specific change will require a debate in the Dáil. We will certainly be happy to hear the views of Opposition parties because that change can only be made with a majority vote in the Oireachtas and not just by a decision of the Government.

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