Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

As the Minister indicated in his opening remarks, the House is aware that the Offences against the State (Amendment) Act 1998 was enacted in the wake of the barbaric murder by the Real IRA of 29 innocent people in Omagh in August 1998. Long before that, as others noted, in 1940 we had an emergency powers Act and the Minister is seeking to renew those emergency powers. I have spoken in support of those powers for many years since coming to the Oireachtas but I am beginning to have concerns. We need a comprehensive overview of our emergency legislation, as we do with much other legislation related to policing and criminal justice. The UN special rapporteur dealing with human rights, among others, has been very critical of this legislation. I might not pay too much heed to the likes of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties sometimes but criticism from such bodies means we should reflect on this matter. It should not be a matter of tokenism when we come in here annually to approve these processes for another year.

The Garda Síochána needs our full support and respect, and that should work both ways. Respect is a two-way street. I do not blame the Minister in particular but if he is serious, he should support An Garda Síochána and give it the tools of the trade to do its job. He should give the Garda the required resources.

I have been campaigning for my own area in Clonmel, which has the lowest numbers of gardaí in the country. It is unfair to expect the Garda officers in Clonmel to be able to carry on, not to mind that they have to deal with the emerging problems of gangs and so on.

Mention was made of 20 major gangs in the country. There are that number, and more, and they are gaining members. We need to start at the bottom in dealing with that and ensure that everyone respects and understands the law. We need more community policing. We need the local garda in situ. I must praise Garda Niall O'Halloran in our area who is on the ground and available to people 100% of the time. The people support him. Those gardaí have the trust of the community and they solve more crimes that way.

Changes in legislation in recent years, some of which were forced through here by the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, and supported by the Minister and with abstentions from Fianna Fáil Members, are doing a lot of damage to the fabric of the support base of the gardaí. No police force in the world can police without the support of the public. In my village, every third or fourth Sunday people are being stopped going to mass. They are literally being harassed. That is over the top and it is driving away the support for the Garda. I am chairperson of the second community alert group set up in the country in 1996. We need people to look out for each other and our neighbours. We need people to be there to help the members of An Garda Síochána solve crime. They cannot do it without that help yet we have that overkill in terms of checkpoints where people are being stopped bringing their children to school, to mass or wherever at a time when we have criminal activity that cannot be dealt with because the Garda does not have the numbers to do it. They tell us that the reason for most of the checkpoints in the morning is because they do not have the resources to have them out at night but that is when they are needed.

The Minister met the Tipperary people some years who had set up a group because they were being almost terrorised by marauding gangs who were stealing everything they had, whether it would be farmers, shopkeepers, businesspeople or whoever. The Garda does not have the resources to deal with that. With the recent exacerbation of the crime problem in Dublin and Drogheda resources are being taken out of the country and we have fewer resources as a result. We had the visit of President Trump last week who was welcome as far as I was concerned but it took a major policing operation to secure the visit. That is fine but gardaí were taken from my areas in the Clonmel and Cahir division to back up those involved in that operation. As a result, we were very thin on the ground in terms of Garda cover. We are thin on the ground anyway in terms of Garda numbers. The gardaí know that. They should be given the tools of the trade, the proper legislation and education regarding changes in the law, dealing with the courts and barristers and everybody else in a challenging situation. I am beginning to wonder if this is the tool.

I can also mention the Omagh bomb families including Michael Gallagher and friends who I have worked with closely. That was an appalling atrocity. In an Ard Fheis speech one night, which was broadcast by RTÉ, the Minister's former Taoiseach pointed out Mr. Gallagher in the audience and told him, "You will get justice from us; you won't get it from Fianna Fáil." However, when he became Taoiseach I brought Mr. Gallagher to the Public Gallery while I raised questions with the Taoiseach but he would not meet him. I ask the Minister now if he has met with the families of the Omagh bomb victims and if he has discussed that with them. What happened in Omagh was a travesty. We could blame the barbaric people who planted the bomb but a lot of information was known by certain agents and agencies who did not act on it. It should not have happened. The families of the 29 people who died, including a woman pregnant with twins, are left bewildered. They are looking for justice also. There is a lot of cleaning out of the cupboards to be done in that regard.

We have seen what has happened with banking and lending institutions in recent times. I refer to so-called court orders being waved at people. Deputy O'Callaghan would know more about a court order than I would but I have often been present when they were not proper legal court orders and gardaí were in an invidious position of being in the middle and having to stand idly by. It happened in Balbriggan where a family was torn from their home. The vehicles those thugs used were parked in Balbriggan Garda station. It happened in Roscommon also, in the Acting Chairman's constituency, to which there was an over-reaction afterwards. I condemned both incidents in Roscommon but the reaction after them was over the top.

In my own town recently a group of families were being housed in an area. A meeting was held in a county council office which I attended along with other Deputies, councillors and concerned residents. I condemn out of hand the action that was taken. That house was damaged and the people have not moved into it yet but I was astounded that the ten or 12 people who attended that meeting in a council scenario, some of whom were very elderly, to express their concerns were brought in for questioning as if they did it. They were horrified. I refer to 70 and 80 year olds being brought in for questioning for two or three hours. Three detectives and a garda were put on different people. Thankfully, I was not questioned. I always support the gardaí but if people are being suppressed like that and families bullied and the gardaí are seen to be standing idly by, something must be done. In many cases they do not understand what they are doing. In other cases, unfortunately, some retired senior personnel from An Garda Síochána are involved in advising and logistics for this third force, as I called them here previously, from Northern Ireland and other police forces across eastern Europe. We need to have a good evaluation of where we are going and what we are doing in that regard.

Ní neart go cur le chéile. I want to support An Garda Síochána but I want the numbers increased to over 16,000. Historically, my county of Tipperary has the lowest numbers of gardaí per head of population in any division. The Minister is aware of the appalling state of our Garda station about which we have had promise after promise. I accept his bona fides that he is doing his best to sort it out with the Minister of State, Deputy Kevin "Boxer" Moran, but I refer to the conditions that gardaí have to work with in Clonmel Garda station, the lack of numbers and the drug problem we have in Clonmel and Carrick-on-Suir. I attended a very sad funeral yesterday morning, and there will be another one there tonight. I refer to the suicide epidemic and the threats people are getting from organised gangs. Ten year olds are going around delivering the drugs. Everybody knows who they are yet it is not being acted upon. We must stamp that out but the only way to do that is to have a restructured and reinforced drug squad in Tipperary, which has the largest division in the town. Some say that Athlone is bigger but it is not; it is the second largest inland town. Units of An Garda Síochána have five or six gardaí whereas down the road in Kilkenny they have 12. We need those numbers reinforced and we need the patrol cars. I had to raise that issue lately with the Minister because they had no patrol cars. We give the Garda Síochána our support. We give them the tools of the trade to do their job. Above all, we support them in terms of the numbers.

We had two tragic accidents some months ago which occurred on a Monday and a Thursday on both sides of Clonmel, on the Waterford and the Cahir side. Two unfortunate gardaí had to go out to both accidents, which involved fatalities, without being given any counselling or other supports. That is traumatic in itself.

We need to respect An Garda Síochána and support it. We need to examine all this legislation and make sure it is fit for purpose and that it deals with the vulture funds and bankers, who seem to be above the law and can ride roughshod over people and hire these third forces, which should not be tolerated in any country. We have an Army and An Garda Síochána. There is no place in Ireland for these moneyed people who can destroy people's lives and families and come in heavy-handed in the dead of night with masks, dogs and everything else. That should not be tolerated. It is doing damage to the body politic and the public support for An Garda Síochána. I want to support An Garda Síochána but I want to see true and meaningful reforms. I have my mind made up and I will support this legislation.

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