Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Okay, but it is happening under our eyes. It is happening in the Chair's county too, and mine. It was gardaí in the Chair's county who tried to get me locked up. Anyway, I know some Members here might like to see me locked up. Thanks be to God, everybody here has a good name.

This legislation is worrying as well as everything else. The Irish Council for Civil Liberties, ICCL, along with six academics working in the area, wrote an open letter to the Minister for Justice in November noting the use of facial recognition technology also raises serious and challenging issues concerning individual privacy and data rights, in a world where population-level mass surveillance is no longer a dystopian fiction but an easy thing to implement. What we need are bodies, not body cams, because the force is depleted. We have fewer than 100 recruits in Templemore at the moment but should have 300. We must examine why young men and women are not opting to join An Garda Síochána. We must make the organisation a safe place to work. We must have respect for its members, make the job rewarding for them, and give the backup.

We had representations from people in Lisronagh. The Minister's predecessor met them. There were major attacks and marauding gangs going around. Gardaí and beangardaí were going up and down the street on their own at 3 o'clock or 4 o'clock in the morning with no backup. They tell us we cannot use the term "beangarda" anymore. I will use it anyway. In the Chair's own town, Lismore, Cappoquin and Ballymacarbry, numbers are being totally depleted. Garda stations that used to have a sergeant and three or four gardaí no longer have them. They need them because people need them to be physically present.

I am all for number plate recognition, especially off the motorways because of the gangs that travel down them and carry out heinous crimes. Already people are becoming increasingly desensitised to facial recognition technology to unlock phone handsets or move through airport passport control. Such uses produce databases of unique biometric facial identifiers that can be combined with larger profiling databases. I resent this and totally object to it. Where are the data stored? Who has it? Big tech companies are making a fortune out of it. We are becoming monopolised as a human race, which should not be happening. Technology is good if used right and in the right place.

As the ICCL letter notes, in Ireland greater consideration and consultation – including with the Data Protection Commission – are needed before any legislative proposals of the kind in question are even published. In addition, there is major EU-level legislation pending that considers face recognition technology and that would potentially force immediate changes to the rushed Irish legislation.

5 o’clock

We should therefore make haste slowly here. Now is not the time for the Department of Justice or the Government to rush such measures through this House. Civil liberty and privacy campaigners have expressed great concern over the move, highlighting what they see as a possibility of discrimination. We will see discrimination.

I was speaking about An Garda Síochána and the community gardaí and the whole division in Tipperary a minute ago. We do not have enough gardaí and so they are pulled off community duties. The Garda station in Clonmel is a hovel. You could not call it anything else. Several Ministers for Justice and Taoisigh have visited. The issue was first raised in this Chamber by the former Ceann Comhairle, Seán Treacy, who is now dead, 50 years ago. We badly need this station. We now have a site and planning and design has been done but there is no sign of the airgead. It was lumped in with a bundle of different Garda stations that then fell off the train. This included Bandon and Sligo. It is now bundled with another Garda station in Cork but it is also in a bundle with the children's law court. When getting a builder for a design and build contract, a law court is a completely different animal from a Garda station. Law courts normally have a fine facade and are fine big buildings like the new courts out near the Phoenix Park. You need totally different architects because they require totally different designs as they are totally different buildings. The courthouse should be removed from that bundle. Let the children's court come under a separate contract because you are fishing in a different pond for different kinds of builders, architects, designers and so on to deliver such a building. It is a completely different project and I do not know why it has been put in here. I believe it was put in as a delaying tactic, which is wrong.

On the Prison Service, with the indulgence of the Chair, I will pay tribute to Assistant Chief Officer, Trevor Darling, who retired from Limerick Prison in the past ten days. He was one of the really good prison management officers. I also wish the governor of Cork Prison, Peter O'Brien, who is soon to retire, well. He is also a highly respected prison officer and has also given excellent service. It is the same with all of the retired gardaí, many of whom attended the function last week that I have mentioned. I am glad that they gave their service and survived. We know that a number of gardaí have made the ultimate sacrifice and given their lives. We saw what happened at Lordship Credit Union. We can have no truck with people who assassinate members of An Garda Síochána in cold blood in this country. It should not be tolerated. Where there are complaints, which do arise, there must be proper channels and processes to deal with them. People often come to my clinics who have issues with different gardaí in different Garda stations. If there was to be this facial recognition on the body cams, it would have to be used very sensitively.

The Minister mentioned body cams and CCTV. Schemes have been held up in my town of Fethard, in Clonmel and all over Tipperary over concerns about data storage from the county council and An Garda Síochána. I am the chairman of a community alert group that installed one of the first such systems 20 years ago in a little village, An Caisleán Nua. The Garda made us take it down despite the fact that the Garda crime prevention officer at the time - his name eludes me but he is now retired - had come out to okay it and told us where to put the cameras. This was at a community house, Tigh na nDaoine, which is a wonderful place. The system was locked. Only An Garda Síochána had the key to the secure cabinet so only gardaí could access it. We had to take it down. That left a bad taste in the mouth of the community because we had raised funds to cover the cost, which was about €6,000, and then had to remove it. Gardaí regularly go into the shops there. My sister is a shop owner in the village. They often solve crimes by looking at the private CCTV. I cannot understand why we have delayed community CCTV for so long. Gardaí often use it. I know of a woman who was beaten up and robbed at the Ballymacarbry community centre. Tá aithne ag an gCathaoirleach Gníomhach ag an áit sin. The Halfway House, in the Acting Chair's area, which is now closed, had CCTV. It was able to identify the number passing and the gardaí were able to solve that crime and get that criminal for his heinous crime because of that help. Despite that, we could not put up CCTV in the community.

There is too much red tape, too much baloney and too many issues. The scheme in Clonmel needs to be renewed and it is now being renewed and extended. I salute the work of councillors and members of An Garda Síochána who are trying to progress this. It has been slow. I attend most of the county joint policing committee meetings and this is discussed ad infinitum. However, there is no replacement for the man on the beat. We had an excellent garda in Newcastle, who succumbed to cancer, Sergeant Niall O'Halloran. He was tremendous. He was on duty 24-7, even when he was not rostered. Most people who wanted his mobile number had it. We now have Garda John Walsh, who came out to us. I thank the superintendent for leading him out to us and for making sure he stayed in our area, which is made up of Newcastle, Ardfinnan, Ballybacon and Grange. Garda Walsh covers these and other areas with Garda Philly Ryan and Garda Donovan from Ballyporeen. They do an excellent job. They know the people. They have to. People go in to sign a form for a passport or something else. The garda will say "Hello Pat", "Hello John", "Hello Mary" or whatever. The people can have confidence in them. Something might jig their mind and remind them they saw something. That could be the solving of a crime but there needs to be that two-way street. People have to respect their gardaí and they have to respect the community.

The Minister will have to support the text alert groups. They are raising funds every day to keep the texts coming out in respect of crime. It is gardaí who decide when they are sent out. It may be, for example, when there is a suspicious vehicle. I am not saying they are sent out foolishly or anything like that but it is an awful drain on the community alert groups. That should be funded. It is great back-up for the Garda and it has run criminals out of communities. People mobilise, get the Garda, run around in cars and form a kind of meitheal. I am not advocating violence or anything like that but they frighten them off and criminals leave the area. The text alerts are a wonderful system.

Property marking is now being rolled out nationally from Tigh na nDaoine in Newcastle, An Caisleán Nua, which I mentioned. The Minister must come and visit some time. A previous Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, the late Brian Lenihan, visited many years ago. Property marking is vital. Everyone knows they have to able to identify their property. There should be a proper number applied with proper equipment. My colleague, Senator Keogan, and her husband have a property marking machine and bring it to different communities. They are expensive machines and people have to be trained to use them but they are brilliant. An Garda often has warehouses full of stolen items but people cannot claim them. People may identify their machines, expensive hoovers and expensive lawnmowers but, if they have no identification on it, they cannot claim it. Property marking is very important. You have a property number. You turn the machine upside down and, in some secret place, that number is there. It cannot be rubbed off. The number is then paired up and the equipment is returned to its rightful owner.

I wish the Bill well but there is a lot of teasing out to be done. The Minister must make haste slowly. He has to take out this facial recognition because too many people, including myself, are opposed to it. I would vote against the whole Bill just to stop that part.

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