Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish to speak in support of this very important Bill. I hope it progresses through the Houses without too much ado.

There are a number of policing issues I wish to raise in the context of the Bill. An issue I keep coming back to is that of gardaí who have been suspended. At present, 87 members of An Garda Síochána stand suspended. I have raised this repeatedly in the Dáil. I do not have the power to determine whether they are guilty or innocent. I do not think the Minister has that power, and the Commissioner certainly does not have it. Some of these cases have been before the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation for up to three years. It is wrong that they have been there for so long.

Many of these people have been suspended because of the controversy relating to the squaring of road traffic offences. If they committed a common law crime by assaulting someone on Grafton Street, they would have been through the court system by now and natural justice would have ensued. What is happening is wrong. Even if we want to look through the metric of the cost of this to the State, if we take the low salary base of the Garda and everyone involved was on the entry level on the salary scale, it would be costing the State €3 million per annum to have 87 members suspended and sitting at home while drawing their salaries. If they are guilty get them out of the force. If they are not guilty get them back on the streets. It is destroying the morale of the suspended gardaí and their families. Let us move matters on. There can be no more excuses. The National Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the Commissioner have dithered on this matter. I make no apology for raising it for the fifth or sixth time in the Dáil. This matter needs to be addressed.

I also want to raise the issue of the child protection laws. As the Minister of State knows, I was a schoolteacher before becoming a Deputy. The laws are there to protect the children of Ireland, and rightly so. They are good set of laws. What I have seen of late is that in many instances they stifle the ability of rank-and-file gardaí to carry out their functions and duties. I know of one case where a youngster who was causing a huge amount of criminal trouble was brought home in a squad car only for the gardaí to be abused at the front door and told how dare they bring the child back in a car. We need to look at criminal law versus child protection law. Child protection law belongs in a certain realm. They are there to protect children. If they are competing with the need to keep our streets safe and putting people aged 16 or 17 years old through the rigors of the law and dropping them back home to their parents at night, where they should be, we need to have a good look at things.

There is an ongoing feud in Ennis. Videos are circulating online, which the Minister of State may have seen, of guns being discharged, a chainsaw being brought into a building and petrol being doused all over a caravan before it is set on fire. It has been described by a local solicitor as "not being very Fáilte Ireland-looking". I would say it is far worse than this and the people of Ennis are fearful. These feuds start out over something stupid. One of them a couple of years ago began over an argument in a chipper. There has been a lot of trouble ever since. It becomes like something out of "The Godfather". Many people fear that in trying to get an eye for an eye an innocent bystander will be caught up in this. We need forces from beyond the county to come down and support us.

At a joint policing committee meeting in Clare on Monday, I asked officials from the Garda Síochána and the council whether certain crimes are notifiable. When someone applies for a council house, their application goes to the Garda vetting unit. Over a six- or seven-week period, the officers in the unit check out who people are and what their background is. Generally, it is understood that this is to ascertain whether they are from a drug-dealing background because, obviously and naturally, nobody wants a drug dealer going in a social housing development and allowing it to spread.

I asked a question to which I could not get a substantial answer. I hope the Minister of State or someone in the Department might respond to me on this. Are sex crimes notifiable? Is the Garda Síochána able to notify a housing authority if someone is a convicted rapist or paedophile? Is is possible for people in social authority housing to know with good faith that whatever else happens in the estate, and things are not always perfect, that the council and the Garda Síochána have their backs and will not allocate housing units to people who have been convicted of the most heinous sex crimes?

It is a basic thing to know. We know that drugs are notifiable so surely sex crimes should be even more notifiable. I would love to get an answer on it once and for all. It would be reassuring for people if we could find that out.

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