Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for the opportunity to speak to this very important, although apparently only half-written, legislation. I will get to that later.

As I understand it, this is the first of three Bills due to be introduced this year that will address reform in An Garda Síochána. There are many issues within An Garda Síochána and there is no doubt that reform is badly needed in the organisation. I find it amazing, however, that instead of addressing the many areas of Garda reform required, the first thing this Government has decided to prioritise is the introduction of new equipment, such as body-worn cameras - for which we are not absolutely 100% sure of the need - at a financial cost to the State and with a cost to our citizens’ rights to privacy and data protection.

I will start by referencing the Data Protection Commission, which has outlined that An Garda Síochána has an extremely poor record of how it uses its own technology, particularly the use of CCTV. A report by the commission published in 2019 regarding CCTV schemes authorised under An Garda Síochána states:

The members of AGS operating a number of the schemes inspected had received no training on the operation of the CCTV systems and the correct handling and protection of the personal data involved. In one instance, ... the Garda members operating the scheme were unaware of the full range of technical features of their own CCTV system.

The commission report recommended that "The lack of overall training in relation to the operation of the CCTV systems and the correct handling and protection of the personal data involved must be addressed by means of a comprehensive training programme with significant data protection elements." This was further backed up by a Garda internal audit issued last year, which stated that a lack of knowledge by An Garda Síochána staff of their data protection responsibilities due to inadequate training by the Garda national data protection unit leads to breaches and non-adherence to the statutory obligations within An Garda Síochána. Sadly, we all know examples of this, and I am thinking particularly of the garda who recorded video footage of a Dublin woman being detained under the Mental Health Act while she was walking naked on a Dublin street. I am extremely concerned then of the idea of massively increasing the amount of filming by members of the Garda of the public on a daily basis. This is particularly concerning due to the fact that there is absolutely no evidence as to why these powers are necessary. There is a complete lack of evidence from other jurisdictions to show that body cameras contribute positively to policing. In fact, we have seen multiple examples in other jurisdictions where such cameras have actually been used inappropriately. The reality is that An Garda Síochána has not shown any ability to deal appropriately with the information it already has.

Research results on the effectiveness of increased surveillance are mixed and inconclusive. One Irish study showed that the installation of CCTV led to a decrease in crime in one area and an increase in another. Many surveillance technologies are relatively new and under-researched. This is why the assessment of any future devices on a case-by-case basis should be included in this legislation. This is particularly important due to the fact that the definition of a recording device is so broad. It includes camcorders, mobile phones, drones, and possible emerging technologies in the future.

The Bill is missing many important provisions, including the provision to ensure that a garda operating a recording device is identifiable as a garda, and the provision to ensure that all members of the Garda using the device have sufficient data protection training or are suitably qualified. These are very important provisions that should be included in legislation such as this, which provides for the greater and more invasive monitoring of citizens.

One aspect of the Bill that I welcome is the introduction of an assessment, carried out by the Garda Commissioner, of the impact of the proposed code on the human rights of individuals who would be affected by it. I wonder whether the Garda Commissioner is the right person to actually carry out that assessment. Perhaps the Policing Authority or some other entity would be in a better position to do that.

My biggest concern, however, is the fact that the then Minister for Justice, Deputy McEntee, had indicated her intention to bring forward a Committee Stage amendment to the Bill to provide for facial recognition technology. It is completely unacceptable to bring forward this legislation today, half written by the Government, with the intention of throwing in such important amendments on Committee Stage. There is absolutely no excuse for this complete disregard for the legislative process. The Minister, Deputy McEntee, clearly stated on 25 May 2022 that it was her intention to provide for the use of facial recognition technology. The Bill was published three months later, on 4 August. The Minister had three months to write facial recognition technology into this legislation but she did not. The Minister, Deputy McEntee, decided instead to publish the Bill without it and then add this extremely important and controversial provision on Committee Stage. Why is this? I can think of no other excuse for this other than the fact that the Government does not want this raised during Second Stage debates in the Chamber. If this is the case, then this is an incredibly sinister and disturbing move. This needs to be addressed urgently because it is starting to become a trend. The Minister clearly identified in May last year that she wanted to include that provision. The legislation was published in August 2022 but here we are now in February of the following year, and yet the Minister could not actually put this forward at any stage before this point. I do not think this is believable at all.

We are seeing a trend of the Government undermining the legislative process. I have been raising this continuously over the past couple of years and it seems that this is yet another tactic it is using.

I know the Government is dead set on introducing this legislation, no matter what the Opposition says, but I urge the Minister to commit to a pilot project and see how things play out in the field before rolling this out nationally. Such a pilot should include robust mechanisms of operational and scientific review, with clear criteria set out that must be met before wider roll-out of this technology is initiated. This is the very least that can be done when introducing invasive and unnecessary cameras nationally.

Deputy Ó Snodaigh was talking earlier about the Garda, the complexity and the availability of technology, and such matters. I was just reminded when he was saying that where I was stopped by the members of the PSNI in the North one night on my way home and they were able to pull up in their car device straight away all of the data on my car which is from the South. They said that I had not got a valid tax disc on the computer system which they had. I showed them the valid tax disc on the windscreen and they said that this anomaly was probably because An Garda Síochána does not update the database it has.

Funnily enough, I happened to continue on home and I was stopped by the Garda outside of my own town of Killybegs. I asked could they look up the same system in respect of my car in that way. They said that they could but said that the car that could do this was only around one day a week, that they could request to have the car there that had that data and system which could have provide the information required. There were two squad cars at the roadblock I was stopped at. The gardaí could not access their own information which the PSNI can access from the Garda, even though the Garda does not update the information that the PSNI can access. Members of the Garda themselves, however, cannot access this information. This is a crazy system. We are talking about this and then we talk about introducing more legislation.

Even if the body cameras come in, will it be one garda out of every 1,000 who will have one? If he or she is lucky enough at the incident at which it is required, will he or she will actually get a film of it? That is the way it is shaping up. If a Garda car involved in traffic control duties in the South cannot have the same computerised system on board that identifies the car, and any problems with it, and if the PSNI can have that in the North; then there is something badly wrong.

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