Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State indicated that the Bill provides that there will be no change to the Civil Service status of existing Garda civilian staff until an order is made by the Minister and that the making of such an order will be subject to engagement with any trade union or staff association concerned and consideration of any representations made by them. He went on to state:

I stress that the commencement of the legislation will have no automatic effect on the current position of existing civilian staff. As I said, the Bill requires consultations with the recognised trade unions concerned prior to the making of a ministerial order which would have the effect of designating such civilian staff as Garda staff.

Those words do nothing to give comfort to the 3,200 members of the Fórsa trade union who are going to be affected by the Bill. My understanding is that the Minister of State has met with the Garda Representative Association, GRA, whose members are affected by this Bill, but has not met with Fórsa. If the Minister of State wants co-operation from the Labour Party in respect of the Bill, that must be sorted out quickly because. Comments such as those to which I refer do not give any comfort to those who want to engage constructively and want to bring their members through a process whereby they engage positively with the changes being proposed. The change involves is not a small one; potentially, it could be significant. Those to whom I refer need to know their terms and conditions are going to be protected. In the absence of such engagement, good faith is being lost from the off. When the Minister of State engages with the GRA but not with the representatives of the 3,200 other workers, it is clear that there is a problem. If the Minister of State takes nothing else from my contribution, I urge him to take from it the fact that the Labour Party will not co-operate with the passage of this Bill until it is satisfied that he and the Department have met, in an even-handed way, with all of the staff associations and trade unions that represent those who will be affected by these changes.

It is important to identify the core changes to existing structures that are proposed in the Bill. As I see it, these include additional powers and functions for the Garda Commissioner, a new non-executive board of An Garda Síochána to hold the Garda Commissioner and senior Garda management accountable, a new policing and community safety authority in place of the Policing Authority and the Garda Síochána Inspectorate, GSI, and the transfer of many of the Policing Authority's functions to the Garda Commissioner, the board or the Minister. We have no objection to legislative reforms that would empower the Garda Commissioner to lead his service as a true chief executive. One concern is with the downgrading of the Policing Authority and the new lines of accountability. My party has called for decades for an external Garda oversight agency. We were determined to break the secretive and damaging relationship between that force and the Department of Justice. This relationship, as my colleague, Deputy Sherlock, pointed out, was vividly demonstrated in the disclosures tribunal report by the flurry of phone calls at senior level between the Phoenix Park and St. Stephen’s Green at times of crisis. These were calls which no one could later remember making or receiving, and their content was forgotten as soon as the line went dead.

My party has been and remains determined to secure effective Garda accountability and oversight to an independent external body. We achieved most of what we wanted when the Policing Authority was finally established. That body, under chairs Josephine Feehily and Bob Collins, lived up to most of our expectations. That is why we are concerned to see recommendations that would divest the Policing Authority of its functions as an external body securing oversight and replace it instead with a new board of management. A Garda management board may well become ingrained with a Garda policing mentality. If we have learned anything over the years, it is that the Garda Síochána need much less, not more, of an in-house policing mentality. Gardaí must be required to demonstrate, fully and in public, that they live up to the same basic standards of fairness, decency and common sense that bind the rest of us or, as Mr. Justice Charleton put it on page 294 of his report:

Central to those issues is a mentality problem. Where a problem occurs, strongly self-identifying organisations can have a self-protective tendency. That, regrettably, also describes An Garda Síochána. It is beyond a pity that it took independent inquiries to identify obvious problems with what Maurice McCabe was reporting.

This Bill is seeking perhaps to distinguish between internal governance and external oversight. Our concerns about the new architecture with a new Garda board revolve around the removal of functions from the Policing Authority in relation to the policing priorities, policing plan and Garda strategy statement, the removal of Policing Authority involvement in appointments and the new multiple lines of accountability for the Garda Commissioner. There have been many expressions of concern that these structural changes will cause confusion for the Garda Commissioner by rendering him accountable to multiple bodies with potentially overlapping remits.

What is the explanation for this something-for-everyone-in-the-audience approach whereby the board will have responsibility for the strategic plan, annual service plan, capital plan, annual report and governance framework, the authority will have responsibility for determining policing priorities and the Minister will have responsibility for security priorities and performance targets? An Garda Síochána needs better management structures, and the number of bodies and agencies that surround it may need to be rationalised. That must not be at the expense of the important principle, which, again, Mr. Justice Charleton has taught us to the effect that policing demands accountability. As he puts it:

A police force is an aspect of the entitlement of a sovereign nation to control its citizens through the rule of law. It exercises primary law enforcement. It is entitled to use force and may be armed. Where respect for the truth fades within such an organisation, where structures of command and accountability break down, and where the police do not offer a complete day of work in exchange for being remunerated by the taxpayer, an essential component of a modern country ceases to function properly. Police action may become fitful, inefficient or even dishonest. This helps no one.

This tribunal has been about calling that police force to account. The Morris tribunal was about the same thing. The commission of investigation conducted by Mr. Kevin O’Higgins, which reported to the Minister for Justice and Equality on 25 April 2016, was about the same thing. Central to these inquiries has been the truth.

This is not the time to consider abolishing anybody whose function is to demand openness, accountability and the truth. In that context, we ask why, most notably, the authority’s role in appointments to senior offices and ranks has been diluted, as has its role in standard-setting for the provision of policing services and oversight of strategic planning and corporate governance arrangements.

It is important to remember that two members of the Commission on the Future of Policing, Dr. Vicky Conway and Dr. Eddie Molloy, opposed recommendations to set up a new Garda board. They stated:

Against a background of decades of antipathy in Ireland towards external oversight and accountability for policing, we believe the inclusion of this board as an additional element in the oversight and governance architecture, and the consequential dilution of the role of the external oversight body (until now the Policing Authority), does not offer the best prospects of achieving the goal of unambiguous, independent, empowered, transparent accountability. While exchanges between the Policing Authority and An Garda Síochána may have appeared fractious, it is still early days in the development of an effective system of governance. Our proposal would be simply to build on the progress made to date by the Policing Authority, which in our view has been both supportive and necessarily challenging in its engagement with An Garda Síochána. We believe that the solution should be to adequately empower the Policing Authority while encouraging maturation of the culture of An Garda Síochána concerning external accountability.

That minority voice is important. It stresses external oversight and accountability as core features more important that avoiding fractious exchanges. It also stresses that Garda culture concerning external accountability must mature. The minority voice has not been heard by the Government.

At present, it is the Policing Authority that oversees the provision of policing services. It approves the three-year strategy statement and the annual policing plan. It sets annual policing priorities and performance targets and has responsibilities and functions concerning selection, appointment, suspension and removal at senior levels. What exactly does the Minister of State say is not working or not working well in these arrangements? We know that the Policing Authority opposed losing these functions.

It stated, "The impression, apparently held and conveyed by the Commission on the Future of Policing, that the existence and functioning of the Authority under the provisions of the 2015 Act served to limit the capacity of the Commissioner to direct and manage the Garda Síochána was unfounded and not supported by any clear evidence". What is the Minister’s view of this clear difference of opinion? What is his evidence? Incidentally, what possible basis in law is there for the assertion in the explanatory memorandum that establishing a Garda board "will facilitate the Minister’s Department in pulling back from involvement in day-to-day management of An Garda Síochána"? The Department has no mandate whatsoever to be involved in day-to-day management. If this change is being made simply to stop the Department from doing what is should not be doing in the first place, that is a poor reason for it.

Apart from the structural issues a Bill this size throws up, a host of smaller questions that will need to be teased out. I will mention just two as examples. Under section 3, one of the security service functions of the Garda will be "to identify foreign capabilities, intentions or activities within or relating to the State that have an impact on the international well-being or economic well-being of the State". Safeguarding the economic well-being of the United Kingdom is a function of the British security services. On foot of this, surveillance by, for example, GCHQ takes place. Competing bids from different countries to attract major foreign direct investment projects are monitored in that country in the interests of industrial development policy. Does anyone seriously suggest that the Garda should do the same thing here? Why is this enabling function included in the Bill?

Section 32 appears to vest in a judge conducting an inquiry into a Garda Commissioner or deputy commissioner the same powers as the High Court to enforce the attendance of witnesses and compel the production of records. This seems, on the face of it, to be unconstitutional. The enforcement powers of the High Court boil down to the power to commit a person for contempt of court if they do not comply. It is not possible to confer that power on a person acting outside the court system. These and other issues will be dealt with on Committee Stage, but we need to hear now a convincing outline as to why the Policing Authority is the chief target of this Bill and why we should believe the new arrangements will be better.

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