Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Fáiltím roimh an deis, mar is gnáth, páirt a ghlacadh sa díospóireacht seo. Is Bille maith agus dearfach é seo ach tagann sé tar éis a lán tuarascálacha agus a lán rudaí nach raibh ceart. Tá an iomarca ama caite roimh na leasuithe atá á chur chun críche os comhair na Dála laistigh den Bhille seo. Tá mé chun tús a chur leis an bpróiseas inniu leis an tuarascáil ón iar-bhreitheamh Charleton. Tá neart le rá aige ó thaobh an Gharda de, rudaí maithe agus rudaí nach bhfuil chomh maith nó chomh dearfach sin. Tosóidh mé leis an mBille é féin. Rachaidh mé timpeall leis an tuarascáil Charleton agus tiocfaidh mé ar ais ag an mBille.

I welcome the opportunity, as always, to take part. Democracy is about taking part and scrutinising legislation. This Bill is welcome and its proposed restructuring is very good, but it comes on the back of a number of reports which I will speak to as quickly as I can. I have a Charleton report open in front of me. The tribunal of inquiry was established in 2017. It is still sitting, but Mr. Justice Charleton produced an interim report in 2018. I will come back to that.

The Bill is a practical one as far as I can see. Galway is to get its own division, which I understand is already in place following the rolling out of that division in a pilot project. It would be helpful to know the result of the pilot project, in respect of which Galway was just one of the areas, such that we know if there were positive or questionable things that needed to be changed or not changed. It would be helpful if we had that information. We will have four Garda regions and 19 divisions covering community engagement, including roads and community policing, crime, performance assurance and business services. The Bill, as I said, is based on a number of things. Let us remind ourselves of the context of where this reform has come from, echoing some of the issues raised by Deputy McGuinness.

Looking first at the third interim report from Mr. Justice Charleton, page 292, the tribunal has been about calling the police force to account. The Charleton tribunal is about holding the Garda to account. The Morris tribunal was about the same issue. I remind the House that the Morris tribunal was about what happened in Donegal. The foolish mistake was in thinking that the behaviour was just happening in Donegal and not in any other county. The Morris tribunal cost over €70 million. We then had the Commission of Investigation by Mr. Justice Kevin O'Higgins. I was first elected in February 2016. Shortly after that, I remember reading that report in detail and I could not believe that I had only 30 minutes in the Dáil to go through it. I used those 30 minutes. That was a very moderate report by Mr. Justice O'Higgins. The honesty of Sergeant McCabe jumped off the page. We also had a number of other reports from Mr. Justice Iarfhlaith O'Neill and Seán Guerin, senior counsel. They are only some of the reports that have led to this reform.

To be positive, I have the greatest respect for the gardaí on the ground.

7 o’clock

We should have more gardaí and they should be more visible, although the Policing Authority draws our attention to that and says while it is really important they are visible, that ignores the good work done behind the scenes and the under-resourcing of special units on cybercrime, sexual abuse, and so on. Thus, in pushing the visibility of the Garda, I am acutely aware of the work done behind the scenes, which is under-resourced, under-praised and not visible.

We can look at Mr. Justice Charleton's third interim report, which states: "Our police force is a resource of brilliant men and women." Indeed, the sentiment that ordinary gardaí are the greatest resource is echoed in the policing plan. Mr. Justice Charleton adds:

How dispiriting it must be for them that all of what is detailed in this report happened. They are crying out for leadership.

This is from 2018, which is not too long ago. The report states:

Regrettably, the Tribunal has sat through a year of evidence and read thousands of documents and, as a result, has come to the conclusion that An Garda Síochána is losing its character as a disciplined force.

This is from a judge not given to exaggeration. The report continues: "Furthermore, it would be foolish to imagine that the problems were isolated to the Cavan/Monaghan Division." That is a point I have repeatedly made and one we should have learned from the Morris tribunal on events in County Donegal. The report also states:

Central to ... [the] issues [highlighted] is a mentality problem. Where a problem occurs, strongly self-identifying organisations can have a self-protective tendency. That, regrettably, also describes An Garda Síochána. It is beyond a pity that it took independent inquiries to identify obvious problems with what Maurice McCabe was reporting. To ask the right question, ... [he quotes Chekhov] is to go far in answering it.

The judge adds, "A cultural shift requiring respect for the truth is needed."

I turn now to some of the obligations of Garda members. I preface those comments by saying they apply to all of us, be that to myself as a Deputy, to the institution of the Dáil, and to many other institutions. In this case it is the obligations of members of An Garda Síochána which are under the spotlight. Imagine we needed the Charleton tribunal, at great cost, for this, though the cost is a minor one compared to that of the Morris tribunal. I will tell the House what Charleton says about those obligations. I have highlighted all seven. He first states the "obligation of gardaí is to take pride in their work and in their uniform". More detail on that is then supplied. The second obligation is to be honest. That applies to all of us, of course. The third obligation is to be visible. The fourth one is to be polite. We needed the Charleton tribunal to tell us this, with respect to the Garda. The fifth obligation is to serve the people of Ireland. They must serve, just as Teachtaí Dála, including myself, are supposed to serve. The sixth obligation on the Garda is to the organisation as a whole. Charleton states:

The organisation must treat their obligation to the public as superior to any false sense that individual policemen and policewomen should stick up for each other.

The seventh obligation is self-analysis. A repeated theme here is the failure by the Garda to have self-analysis. Again, we can all put ourselves under that spotlight. It should not be necessary to have a Morris tribunal for six years nor an O'Higgins Commission for a year and a half. It should not be necessary to have a disclosures tribunal, now reporting over a year and a half after being set up. Charleton observes:

What has been missing in the past is the command structure of An Garda Síochána calling itself to account. [...] Public relations speak as a substitute for plain speaking is an affront to the duty of our police force to be accountable. The correct approach for an organisation is to enable those who are expert on a subject to speak on its behalf.

Under the heading "Uncovering the truth", he remarks:

In relation to the matters at issue in these reports, it has been a dreadful struggle to attempt to uncover what may have gone on behind closed doors. That should not happen. A court, or a tribunal or other investigative body appointed on behalf of the people of Ireland, is the place where public servants are obligated to the truth and not to any group adhesion.

Charleton later states:

What has been unnerving about more than 100 days of hearings in this tribunal is that a person who stood up for better standards in our national police force, Sergeant Maurice McCabe, and who exemplified hard work in his own calling, was repulsively denigrated for being no more than a good citizen and police officer. [...] The question has to be asked as to why what is best, what demands hard work, is not the calling of every single person who takes on the job of service to Ireland. Worse still is the question of how it is that decent people, of whom Maurice McCabe emerges as a paradigm, are so shamefully treated when rightly they demand that we do better.

I will put Charleton aside now but it is important to give context to the reform before us.

In addition to the reports I have mentioned, we have had the setting up of various oversight bodies, including the Policing Authority, the Garda Inspectorate and the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission. On top of that we have had the various reports: A Policing Service for the Future, the plan arising under that, the Garda operating plan, and so on. I realise there has been some discontent from the Garda Representative Association and the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors, so if the Minister were in a position to update us on their concerns and whether they have been put to bed, that would also be very helpful.

I have read all the Policing Authority's reports on policing behaviour during Covid. It has been overwhelmingly fulsome in its praise for the gardaí on the ground during the pandemic. We had a specific Policing Authority report on policing performance in July. Again, it is a balanced report and praises the Garda when it deserves praise. The authority highlights the conditions under which gardaí work. What jumped out at me was its reference to "the growing evidence of driving under the influence of drugs as being an increasingly common feature of contemporary life". Gardaí work in a very difficult environment and deserve our support and respect. In order to get that, there must be good management that inspires trust, so we can trust them.

Like many other people, I have called for more and more gardaí on the streets of Galway to walk and cycle through the people. They were particularly absent when the Government gave the thumbs-up to drinking on our streets. We gave out a message that ignored all the policies, including our healthy cities policy and the Barcelona declaration, which committed us to universal access for all our residents. Instead of that the Government gave the message that people should go out and drink. It told the businesses - and I fully support businesses - they should extend onto the pathways. The Barcelona declaration was thrown to the side. That declaration was signed by Galway almost 20 years ago and committed the city to universal access, so we would stop the discrimination between people who are able and those who are not so able. The declaration to stop this arbitrary discrimination was thrown to the wind. We have by-laws which say people cannot drink on the street. The gardaí had to ignore these because the policy from the Government was that people should go out, drink and be merry. While I love a drink and love to be merry - outside the Dáil - it must be balanced with other people's rights. The gardaí in Galway were left in a very awkward position in relation to how they were going to implement the by-laws and the various regulations coming from the Government. That has left us a quandary in Galway where community policing is concerned, as we want much more but we want a balancing of rights between our citizens and our residents who we encourage to live in the city, yet we give free rein on the other hand, taking away the peaceful and quiet enjoyment of resident's lives. That is a huge challenge in Galway. I am sure it is repeated in the other cities.

The Policing Authority assessment report is an excellent document. It talks about the visibility of police being very important. However, as I said, it is also quite nuanced in mentioning the other work going on behind the scenes which is not visible.

It points out three major gaps or issues, namely, finance, ICT and human resources. Considerable progress has been made in respect of ICT and a new executive director of finance has recently taken up the job. However, significant work remains to be done in all three areas and the report goes on to outline the consequences of that. It points to the absence of a strategic workplace plan and to a long-standing vacancy for a learning and development director which leaves management without a clear sense of direction, prioritisation and planning. This is specifically spelled out. Information that the Authority has asked for repeatedly has not been forthcoming from An Garda Síochána, notwithstanding the commitment to reform.

As part of its statutory functions the Policing Authority is required, under various sections, to provide advice to the Minister for Justice before each financial year with regard to the resources that are likely to be required. On page 16 of the Policing Authority's Assessment of Policing report we read that "Since the establishment of the Authority, this function has been largely frustrated and action against it undermined by a lack of sufficient financial information and insight from the Garda Síochána". A budget of approximately €2 billion annually covers current and capital expenditure. At present, notwithstanding that amount of money, the organisation does not have the ability to cost the policing plan or the projects within it. This lack of overall budgetary planning results in resources not being in place when they are needed. While it is difficult to identify the projects or targets that are most directly impacted by this, or the extent to which they are, "the reliance on HR, IT, training and estates means that the lack of proper financial costing and planning...results in ongoing challenges and delays.". I have skipped through the report in the interests of brevity but it is all laid out here in black and white. The report states that the Authority will "continue to support and challenge the Commissioner and his senior management team to enhance its strategic financial planning capacity".

I welcome the reform although I am sure it may present problems on the ground, as has been brought to our attention by the two organisations I have mentioned. I welcome the emphasis on community policing but would like to know if the concerns have been or will be addressed and how they will be addressed. I would like to come back to the essence of An Garda Síochána. Gardaí are there to protect us and we must appreciate that. However, in doing that, there must be proper training and an ability to analyse and understand where they are going wrong and a willingness to put their hands up. That did not happen in the recent debacle of the cancelled calls. I understand that investigation is still ongoing. The Policing Authority has been critical of the delay in alerting it to the cancellation of very serious calls, including calls from victims of domestic violence. I understand that an independent person has been appointed to look into it. However, one would have thought that with a new direction and a new commitment, An Garda Síochána would have been proactive and that it would not have taken the Policing Authority to drag out the information as to what happened and the nature of same. One would not have thought that gardaí would be minimising what happened rather than putting their hands up. I do not wish to preach; it is up to all of us in our lives to learn but the focus tonight is on the Garda Síochána.

In addition to the cancelled calls investigation which is ongoing, it should be noted that the CSO still publishes crime statistics under caveat. That has been going on for quite some time - as far back as 2004 as I understand it. It would be helpful to know when that caveat will be lifted. I do not want a response to the effect that the CSO is independent. What I would like to hear from the Minister for Justice is when gardaí will be ready to give fulsome information to the CSO so that the caveat can be removed. When will we have the strategic workplace plan? At the moment there seems to be a complete disconnect between the need for it and the consequences on the ground.

See this speech in context