Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am very pleased to speak on this Bill today, which I welcome. It is an important update and a new approach to managing compensation claims. Last week, I was at the Dún Laoghaire Garda station for the centenary celebrations. A significant number of members and retired members were there, including those getting long-service awards. There was a fantastic exhibition of the history of An Garda Síochána which included the different artefacts they used over the period, including different uniforms and weapons that were in use. It was a moment to reflect on the history of An Garda Síochána and the bravery with which so many members have approached their work, going out every day in various circumstances in communities with additional difficulties into difficult places and difficult situations. It was a reminder to me of the important role An Garda Síochána plays in every community. I was very pleased to be there.

The Bill is an important statement of support for An Garda Síochána, its individual members and for the force as a whole. It is an important simplification of the injury management process and the compensation management process for injured members. It also deals with compensation for the families of deceased members and makes life easier for everybody. When somebody has suffered an injury of any kind in work there are so many additional difficulties such as hospital appointments, a new complexity to life, the management of physical pain and the psychological aspect of the injury. Anything that can be done by the State to make life easier for somebody who has incurred an injury in the course of serving the State must be done. This is an important step the Minister has brought forward.

In the context of a deceased member, it is an important and compassionate step to have made things more straightforward for the family. The legislation deals with the management of the compensation. Could a contemporaneous piece of work be done to provide psychological and emotional supports to people who have received injuries, in anticipation of the sort of additional psychological support some but not all might need? It is easy to anticipate that an injury is more complex than simply being physical. It would be a wonderful statement to proactively anticipate the mental health side of any injury and to put the arm around a member of An Garda Síochána who has suffered an injury and to anticipate that the injury may not just be physical.

This is an important year for An Garda Síochána, given the centenary. I started by looking back, but when I was in Dún Laoghaire last week I was thinking very much about the future of An Garda Síochána and the future of the developing State. I thought about it from two perspectives: first, the development of the State geographically and how much building there has been, essentially how many new towns are being developed. The Minister will forgive me for mentioning again the necessity for a Garda station at the developing town of Cherrywood, which has a population of 30,000 people. You will forgive me for raising this again, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle. I am aware of the pressure that will be placed on the area due to the population influx. It is also a developing State in terms of our understanding of mental injury in particular and psychological trauma. We understand that so much better and we are better at being able to anticipate that. We must be able to put the structures around mental illness and mental injury that can occur so easily through fear or an occasion of trauma. I refer, for example, to the potential exposure of some members of An Garda Síochána to child exploitation material. All of that is foreseeable and we can anticipate that such incidents might happen. We understand these things better all the time. I ask that they would be on the mind of the Minister's officials as well as we move through this process.

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