Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this opportunity to speak about the Bill. It is about restoring Garda court presenters and it is more than urgent to pass it. I want to make a few brief points on it. We do not always agree here but when there is a matter of urgency, we can come to a gentleman's or lady's agreement. We do not oppose the Bill. We accept it and the waiving of the requirement to undertake pre-legislative scrutiny, but as has been raised a number of times on the side of the House, one slight amendment is required. I ask the Minister of State to take it on board. If accepted, it would mean the Garda court presenter would not be under the rank of sergeant. The Minister will have heard other speakers speak about trying to streamline the legislation and say the judgment in the High Court may be an opportunity for us all in this House to work together and consider changing practices within the judicial system.

With regard to streamlining services, the drugs courts and so on were mentioned. Funnily enough, the mental health committee, at its meeting this morning, dealt with people who are charged with offences under the drugs Act. Many of these have addiction issues, so maybe there is an alternative to going to court. Individuals could be victims because of addiction. Therefore, there are many things we could change in the legislation.

I have spoken to gardaí about this. We used to have many conversations when we were working in the convention centre.

We should have more of them on the streets on the beat. Their frustration is that they are doing all the administrative work even though they are trained to go out and protect the citizens of this country. It is not happening. Our amendment is to streamline it and make it specific to working gardaí. People can do all the theory tests in the world but once we go onto the practical stuff, that is where we need our gardaí, not inside, acting as deputy clerks or anything like that. I ask the Minister of State to take that amendment on board. It would be of benefit to moving forward within any part of a judicial review or anything to do with the courts. Let us get gardaí onto the streets to protect the people they are supposed to serve.

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