Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The principle of garda court presenters means that any member of An Garda Síochána can institute and can conduct prosecutions in a court of summary jurisdiction in the name of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. As Members have already said, the system has been well represented, well established and has been working efficiently. For many within the District Court prosecutions, the legal basis for garda court presenters being well understood ensures that gardaí would not be taken off the beat because they are required to present in court to conduct their own prosecutions on every summons that they initiate.

The proposed amendment has been recognised as required due to a recent High Court ruling at the end of May. The High Court found against the State, requiring that a prosecuting garda must be present in court to progress the case that he or she initiated. Such a finding, if left unamended, would completely disrupt the courts, as has been suggested. Therefore, I as a member of the Regional Group, will be welcoming the amendment. It is important to close out this legal loophole.

I will speak for a few minutes about the actions of gardaí, as opposed to the courts, as well as about the difficult job they have in trying to integrate with the court system and to process their own work. We have significant challenges now across the State, not least of which are the increased challenges of anti-social behaviour, drug abuse, criminal theft and damage, attacks upon the person and attacks upon gardaí. Many of those who are accused in the courts of serious crimes are availing of legal aid. I would say that there is an overly accommodative stance in terms of sentencing regimes. It is probably to do with the difficulties with the lack of prison accommodation. However, it is a fact - it has been made public quite a number of times - that there are many people walking around with multiple convictions. They should basically be in a custodial situation and they are not. They are coming up time and again before the courts. This is very challenging for gardaí to be seeing these people out and about when they are trying to prosecute them in the courts.

Much of the discretion that was available, particularly to community and regional gardaí, has been withdrawn in recent years. The result is now that more minor prosecutions are being activated. For many in An Garda Síochána, they are admonished to ensure that the letter of the law is applied without cognisance of the spirit to which it was intended. This is something that the Minister of State needs to have a look at. It is having a detrimental effect in garda community liaison engagement. It is obstructive to building the relationships that community and gardaí need to facilitate and to share a relationship and information, particularly of information that would expedite the solving of less serious crimes.

In terms of expediting court appearances, we now have a significant problem in the State where summonses are going out and they are not being picked up by An Post. People are not at the addresses that they are being sent to. We have over and over deferral of cases. If you look at air travel at the moment, it is ubiquitous that everybody is getting their boarding cards through their phones. People have no problem accessing travel documents through their phones all the time. The Minister of State needs to look at some integrating technology now that summonses can be issued by means of mobile phones and emails. This would do much to speed up the activities in the courts, to make sure that summons are served and to ensure that people are deemed to have been served.

I also want to mention the issues of my own Garda station, which is now the divisional headquarters for the south east in Waterford. I raised this in the House with the Minister of State some months ago. I was happy in recent days to attend a community engagement down there. It was attended by all of the rescue services and ambulance services in the area. That is only right because Waterford, as the Minister of State probably knows, serves over 12 counties for all areas of emergency, including 999 calls and air-sea rescue. They co-ordinate everything there. As I said to the Minister of State before, there is not room to swing the proverbial cat inside that barracks building. It has had no expansion and no capital development for the past 20 years, even though it has now been designated as a divisional headquarters. More people are due to go into it. More people from the private sector are due to work there. There is no room for these people. There is no room for the members to put their bags. There are very few lockers. I ask the Minister of State again to liaise with the Department of Justice, the Commissioner and the OPW to find the long-requested funding for this barracks. I understand that a capital footprint and a design plan of €3 million or €4 million was given to the Department. I ask the Minister of State to resource that so that members there can do their jobs efficiently.

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