Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Government is committed to ensuring that An Garda Síochána has the resources it needs to deliver on the goal of building stronger, safer communities. My colleague, the Minister, Deputy McEntee, has consistently asked gardaí what more she can do to provide supports for them as they do their job. Being a garda is difficult. I do not, nor should any of us, take for granted their efforts or underestimate the risks to which they are exposed every day on our behalf. I am certain most of us are related to somebody who is a garda, and we know not just the impact of their role but also the impact on their wider families, working shift work and all the dangers that go with that.

That is why the Minister enacted legislation before the summer to increase the maximum sentence for assaulting a member of An Garda Síochána and other emergency workers from seven to 12 years. That is why one of her main priorities this term is to pass the recording devices Bill to allow gardaí to wear bodycams from next year. Last month, An Garda Síochána began the tender process for purchasing bodycams and publicly demonstrated how they will work. The Bill will not only allow us give gardaí bodycams, but also reform CCTV schemes. Under the Bill, community groups will be able to request schemes in their areas. This will also help gardaí and tackle crime and antisocial behaviour. The Government will always make sure money is available for new uniforms, better equipment and new technologies and support the well-being of Garda personnel.

Policing as a profession exposes people to sometimes traumatic and challenging incidents. It is important that personnel have access to, and avail of, these supports when they need them. At a strategic level, An Garda Síochána is prioritising this through its health and well-being strategy. This plan identified how the organisation could improve the health and welfare of gardaí, whether that is by better communicating the existing supports available or by developing partnerships to offer new supports. In conjunction with the employee assistance service, a peer supporter group was established within An Garda Síochána. Peer supporters are colleagues who have received appropriate training to help members cope with the effect of a traumatic incident in the workplace. Very often in circumstances of traumatic incidents, the response from a peer supporter has a huge impact in assisting colleagues in the aftermath of such occurrences. Since June 2016, a 24-7, 365-day independent helpline and counselling service has been available to all staff within An Garda Síochána, with the service available for both work and personal difficulties.

Each member of the organisation may avail of six free sessions of counselling per year and an additional two will be provided if clinically approved. All appointments and consultants are arranged directly between the service provider and the staff member. Trauma-based counselling is also now available to all personnel following a traumatic incident in work. This counselling is a self-referral and is accessed through the same helpline, but the individual indicates to the call taker that the request is as a result of a traumatic incident. Work ion delivering mental health first aid training to all Garda personnel during 2023 and 2024 is also at an advanced stage.

The issue of Garda rosters is of central importance to Garda members, as we all know. I understand how important the issue of rosters is to everyone involved. They are important to the work and family life of individual gardaí. They are also important for the Commissioner's ability to operate the organisation efficiently and effectively and to maximise Garda visibility. The Garda roster currently in operation, which has become known as the Covid roster, was introduced by the Commissioner to deal with the specific policing requirements that arose during the Covid pandemic. Nobody believes that the Covid roster or pre-Covid roster is a long-term solution. The Government and, in particular, the Minister, Deputy McEntee, want to see a solution to this issue in order to support the health and well-being of members of An Garda Síochána. We also want to ensure that whatever the roster in place, it serves the public and provides the high visibility policing we all want in this House. The Commissioner has the Government’s full support. Equally, all of us in this House support Garda members in the work they do. We want to see a resolution to this impasse. Roster negotiations have been ongoing for some time and I urge all parties to continue to proactively engage on this matter. There is time to negotiate, double down and try to find a solution, namely, a new roster.

The motion states that the mission of An Garda Síochána is "Keeping People Safe”, and that is right. Policing has a central role in this, but keeping our citizens safe is much broader than just policing. We have to continually ask ourselves what more we can do to protect vulnerable people in society. It is about having laws that are fit for purpose. A few months ago, the Minister was invited to close an event for the Women’s Aid impact report 2022. There is no doubt that many of the figures and statistics in that particular study are shocking. Twelve women died violently in 2022. That was 12 lives taken and 12 families forced to suffer immeasurable grief. I reiterate the Government’s determination to deliver a society that does not accept this brutality or the attitudes that underpin it. Domestic abuse is not a lesser crime; it is assault, assault causing harm, assault causing serious harm and murder. We can never suggest that these crimes, because they are occurring at the hands of an intimate partner, should be treated any less than they are. They are the most serious of crimes.

Victims of domestic abuse are particularly vulnerable and the perpetrators of these hideous crimes must feel the full force of our law. The roll-out of divisional protective service units across the country shows that An Garda Síochána is committed to supporting vulnerable victims and to bringing to justice those that target them. Headline figures from the 2022 Women’s Aid report showed that it received more than 33,000 disclosures of domestic abuse against women and children last year, including more than 1,000 cases of sexual abuse; that four in five of those in contact were abused by a current or former male intimate partner; and that contact with Women’s Aid overall was up by 16%. The Minister and I believe that these statistics tell two stories. They demonstrate the scale of the continuing challenge we face in ending domestic and sexual abuse but also, more positively, they show that more of those who have suffered in silence are seeking support. Sadly, we also know that these contacts only represent the tip of the iceberg and that there are still so many who are trapped in traumatic and desperate situations, subjected daily to psychological and physical abuse at the hands of someone they should be able to trust. Continuing with our efforts to combat all forms of domestic and sexual violence is essential if we are to stop the psychological abuse and torture, end the assaults and stop the murders that far too many women, and some men, are continuing to fall victim to.

I thank the Deputies for raising these points because those latter points I make are intrinsically associated with the role of An Garda Síochána in enforcing and implementing those new strategies to bring about cultural change in Ireland around domestic abuse and all the other areas that we have discussed today, including keeping people in this country safe. The Government is proud of An Garda Síochána and we hope to see the issues that have arisen resolved as soon as possible. That can only happen through close and detailed engagement. I thank the House for the opportunity to speak on this motion.

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