Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for bringing this vitally important legislation to the House and I appreciate the opportunity to briefly contribute to some of the points on Second Stage. Like others, I look forward to coming in on Report and Committee Stages as this is developed further. There is widespread support for this legislation in this House, for very good reasons. This is vitally important to ensuring that the work of An Garda Síochána is completely modernised and restructured in a way that can reflect the modern demands on policing. A lot of the changes we have seen in the approach of An Garda Síochána have been extremely beneficial but they are, quite frankly, only the tip of the iceberg. As regards structuring, the increased role of civilian staff in administrative work within the organisation has huge potential but we have to ensure that those civilian recruits are trained properly, given continued professional development and are genuinely alleviating the administrative burden of members of the Garda, in order to allow gardaí to get back to doing the jobs they are trained to do.

Over recent weeks and months we have, sadly, heard a lot about antisocial behaviour, particularly in Dublin. A colleague of mine in Fine Gael took a walk down O'Connell Street the other evening with his young child and noticed only one garda on duty on the entire street. This is our main thoroughfare in our capital city. I do not think that is acceptable. We need to ensure that the resources, as Deputy Gould said, are put in place to ensure we have that level of high-visibility community guarding, that people are safe and secure and know that the gardaí are deployed on foot and in person, particularly in the city centre of our nation's capital, or other major urban areas such as Cork, Galway, Limerick or elsewhere. That is so important when tackling rising levels of antisocial behaviour, much of which was brought about through the pandemic. We are ensuring that people continue to have that relationship with our gardaí that we are rightly so proud of in this State.

People always say we need to look at other jurisdictions and the work that is going on elsewhere. There are instances around the world where some of the work of policing can be cherry-picked and brought in to enhance the work of An Garda Síochána but we have to be honest. We have an extremely well-trained well-functioning police force in this country, something that we should all be very proud of. We have all had engagement with that, both as public representatives and as ordinary citizens, particularly in the very difficult last 18 months. Looking at the structures of An Garda Síochána and the workload it has, particularly as regards rostering and the changes that were made to accommodate changes in work practice due to Covid-19 to ensure that level of high-visibility policing was there, where changes have worked we must ensure they are maintained. It should not simply be a case of because the pandemic is over we will go back to what was there before. We should ensure that members of An Garda Síochána are operating and working to the best of their abilities, in circumstances and arrangements that suit them. We need to be able to retain that and this legislation provides for all those opportunities. I look forward to speaking on a further Stage. I thank the Minister and again commend this legislation to the House.

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