Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

I very much welcome the motion brought forward by my colleague Deputy Paul Gogarty. In recent weeks, the new Commissioner has taken office. It is really important to say that the previous Commissioner left the morale of the force in tatters. This is why the Minister for justice, Deputy O'Callaghan, now has a major job at hand in recruitment and retention in the force. I believe the first thing that needs to be reviewed is the new policing model, particularly in relation to the geographical areas. Mayo is in a district of the north west, with Roscommon and Longford.

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That is a span, from Blacksod Bay in the barony of Erris to the eastern side and the boundary with Longford, of over 200 km. It is a geographical region from one end to the other of more than three hours. It is no wonder, as Deputy Fitzmaurice mentioned, that gardaí do not feel supported with regard to their management and so on.

The subdistricts need to be reviewed as well. In my own area, if you look at east Mayo, Ballyhaunis is in the subdistrict of Ballina. If they have to detain a suspected criminal, they have to travel nearly an hour to bring that person into custody. That is unacceptable and it is causing a significant barrier to a proactive policing model that I think we all need.

The other issue here regards manpower. We have seen a significant reduction in the number of gardaí. I have been speaking to hundreds of gardaí over the last number of years, and right across every area and station of Mayo, the units have reduced by half. The regular units and stations in Mayo have reduced by half. Ten years ago, it was seven, eight, nine, ten gardaí per unit; now we are down to three or four. One of the big problems here relates to the new policing model. What the Minister has done is create specialised units. It has pulled from regular units and moved those gardaí away from the front line and away from community policing. What the Minister has done is unsustainable. If a shopkeeper wanted to expand his offering and offer coffee, for example, that shopkeeper would have to do an analysis around the capacity and perhaps recruit new staff to make that offering, but the Minister has not done that. As a result, he has left the remaining few to pick up the pieces because he has not planned for this. That must be addressed by the new Commissioner. It is really important that the Minister starts to listen to the rank-and-file gardaí because it is really unacceptable and disrespectful that the previous Minister and Commissioner disregarded one of the most emphatic votes of no confidence in the history of An Garda Síochána. In fact, it was the most emphatic: over 98% of the Garda rank and file voted a motion of no confidence, and the Minister of the day and the Commissioner shrugged their shoulders.

I ask the Minister to engage with the Commissioner and to review the geographical boundaries, both subdistricts and larger districts. The bureaucracy also needs to be reviewed. The IMS system needs to be analysed. I wonder why it has not been introduced into Dublin. Is it because that system would actually crash the force in Dublin? That is what is happening across rural Ireland as well.

It is also important that the force, in terms of the regular units, is beefed up to ensure the last remaining few - the three or four members of the units - are supported as well. Again, I thank Deputy Paul Gogarty for bringing this motion forward.

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