Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will share time with Deputies Ward and Paul Donnelly. Tógfaidh mé deich nóiméad dom féin. I commend the Minister of State's speech, which is excellently written. I will deal with a few things within in. There is reference in it to assisting people with mental health and addiction conditions.

As we know, I believe there were 7,000 call-outs to An Garda Síochána last year to deal with mental health crises. While we welcome the acknowledgement that this is taking place, any changes should happen in conjunction with mental health services. In Kerry, because there has been an outsourcing of mental health services, once an authorising officer has determined that somebody should be taken to a mental health centre, it often happens that no one is available to take them away from the Allied Admissions, and it falls back on An Garda Síochána to deliver the patient to the hospital. This leads to frustration in An Garda Síochána, which tends to be short staffed in the units.

I noticed that throughout the 20 minutes of the Minister of State's speech, not once was An Garda Síochána referred as "the force", which is a positive step because in this day and age it is the incorrect term for a police service. I commend whoever wrote the speech on leaving that out. It should not be in a 21st century police service.

I also noticed reference to Garda personnel, which is important and could be relevant to the legislation on bodycams we discussed last week, which specifically refers not to members of An Garda Síochána but to Garda personnel. That might need to be teased out at a later stage when discussing who has control of the data, for example. It is a very responsible role and we will have to look at that in further detail.

I also welcome the Minister of State saying he will engage with any trade unions. We had an interesting contribution from the unions on the role of the civilian staff within An Garda Síochána. They had concerns, particularly for existing staff, that the potential to transfer to other Departments was being limited. That will also need to be looked at.

Part 5 deals with the reform and organisation of the ombudsman. In future any State agencies will need to be referred to by the Irish name. I look forward to seeing that the official name as Gaeilge will be Oifig an Ombudsman Póilíneachta. That will be important and I thank the Minister of State for the contribution.

The introduction of this Bill represents a culmination of the hard work of many people. It is appropriate we remember Dr. Vicky Conway, who tragically passed away last year. She was an unwavering voice in favour of police reform and accountability. Her contributions to the 2018 report of the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland were immense and her passing was a massive loss.

I would like to return to that report to ensure we do not lose sight of its recommendations. At the time we made a detailed submission. A lot of time has elapsed since then and much debate took place during pre-legislative scrutiny. For some the Bill does not go far enough with police reform while for many within the wider policing community, such as representative organisations and unions, it may go too far. A balance needs to be struck but that can be done through a human rights focus which, to its credit, the Bill sets out to do for the first time in the State's history.

The right to feel safe, have due process and seek justice for wrongs committed are at the heart of good policing. Many is the time, at joint policing committee, JPC, meetings in Kerry, it was important to emphasise that the role of An Garda Síochána is always to address crime and the causes of crime but also, most important, to address the fear of crime within the community. It is important that message goes out strongly from An Garda Síochána, especially in areas where the level of crime is very low but people still live in fear that their house will be burgled when it is very unlikely to happen. The Garda powers Bill, which is separate from the one at hand, has much to do in that regard.

Section 4 of this Bill explicitly states that policing must take place independently and impartially in a manner that protects and vindicates human rights and in a manner supporting the proper and effective administration of justice. This echoes the first recommendation of the commission's report, namely, that human rights are the foundation and purpose of policing. I wish to examine who exactly is responsible for ensuring those principles are upheld in practice. On the face of it, the Bill addressed this by creating a new board of An Garda Síochána to which the Commissioner is accountable. The commission's report pointed out that any Garda Commissioner is unlikely to have gained a full skill set in running a large organisation throughout a career in policing. The board can provide a crucial function in that respect. I welcome that the Public Appointments Service will be involved in the selection of the board. This can also be teased out further on Committee Stage. The Bill also provides that the Commissioner shall be accountable to the board for the performance of his or her functions while being operationally independent. However, the watering down of the powers of the authority, which is explicitly not part of An Garda Síochána, is a concern.

I will make a few comments on the authority and the inspectorate. The Bill transfers the various functions of the authority to either An Garda Síochána, the Commissioner under the guidance of the board or the Minister, with the policing and community safety authority having a consultative role at most. The inspectorate is also abolished and the policing and community safety authority is created in place of both organisations. It is difficult to see how accountability can now be increased while the work of both, which is very different in this context, is now to be undertaken by one body. While this respects the recommendations of the commission, a crucial aspect is missing.

The report proposes that:

PCSOC should have a remit to oversee the relevant activity of all agencies involved in policing and the prevention of harm, at both national and local level. It should scrutinise policing performance, carry out inspections, promote professional standards and coordinate and support local structures for community engagement with police.

Sinn Féin supports a whole-of-justice-system inspectorate and it is a disappointment to see that the Bill now narrows the authority's remit to only An Garda Síochána. If a future scandal were to arise, it would not be difficult to see the Commissioner asserting that its accountability is solely to the board, which is, in itself, responsible for the interests of An Garda Síochána rather than to the authority. Again, Committee Stage amendments may clear some of this up.

The reform of GSOC, through the creation of the IOPO is a major part of the commission's report, our submission and this Bill. The organisation has long been crippled by an overly complex complaints procedure, understaffing and sometimes a lack of co-operation, support and resources. I pay tribute to the work of Ms Justice Mary Ellen Ring who once sent a diagram of the complaints procedure to it. She has advocated for change and it is arriving in the form of this Bill. Communication about performance management issues, which constitute the majority of complaints, as well as the issues relating to us, as representatives, must be improved. The requirement of the ombudsman to track trends in its work is important in this respect as certain issues must then feed back into performance management within An Garda Síochána.

The powers of search which the ombudsman has were criticised, but they are crucial to ensure proper accountability. This is the heart of the issue with the new policing ombudsman. I quote from the report:

All complaints that go beyond performance management, and involve alleged breaches of human rights or accepted standards of policing, should be investigated by IOPO itself, not by police, and IOPO should be adequately resourced to do so.

I cannot go into details given that it involves cases currently before the courts, but we have seen some pretty extraordinary allegations which have resulted in arrests and charges. The Commissioner's establishment of an anticorruption unit is important but there is also risk if police are investigating themselves. We need lasting structures to ensure the good work lasts.

The Bill also creates a new category of Garda personnel, comprising An Garda Síochána members and civilian staff - currently civilian staff. We are not opposed to civilianisation of police as it frees up gardaí from front-line duties, as the Minister of State mentioned. Government has done some good work in this area even as it has seen the number of sworn members decrease. A number of unions have voiced their concerns about the move and wish to see this system retained to allow staff to transfer into and out of An Garda Síochána, and this must be retained.

Another avenue to avoid accountability was that the Garda was also responsible for national security. The creation of the office of independent examiner is extremely welcome. The Bill does not seem explicitly to require this person to be a judge but provides that a judge may hold the office. This examiner reviews national security and provides requests, and this work should be informed by human rights and accountability.

The community safety partnerships are also welcome, as their powers seem appropriate and can give more practical effect to local input from elected representatives. There is a slight concern that the powers are not clearly defined in primary legislation and a great deal of detail will fall to the Minister through secondary legislation. However, we can examine that matter.

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