Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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10. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on the work of the public service, justice and police reform division of his Department. [48038/22]

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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11. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on the work of the public service, justice and police reform division of his Department. [52025/22]

Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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12. To ask the Taoiseach if he will provide an update on the policing reform implementation programme office in his Department. [52032/22]

Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
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13. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on the policing reform implementation programme office based in his Department. [51661/22]

Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats)
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14. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on the policing reform implementation programme office based in his Department. [52017/22]

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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15. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on the public service, justice and police reform division of his Department. [51710/22]

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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16. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on the public service, justice and police reform division of his Department. [51713/22]

James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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17. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on the work of the public service, justice and police reform division of his Department. [52028/22]

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 10 to 17, inclusive, together.

The public service, justice and policing reform unit is part of the social policy and public service reform division of my Department. The work of the unit supports me in my role as Taoiseach on policing reform, criminal justice, public service reform, social affairs and other related matters, supports the Civil Service management board, including the Civil Service renewal programme, and contributes to the oversight and governance of the new public services reform plan. The unit also assists the work of the Cabinet committee on social affairs and equality and the associated senior officials group, which were established to oversee implementation of programme for Government commitments in the areas of social policy, equality and public services. Policy areas covered include gender equality, which encompasses efforts to address domestic, sexual and gender-based violence, and matters relating to arts and culture, children, justice, policing reform and community safety, disability, social inclusion, direct provision, the Irish language, and sport.

The unit incorporates the policing reform implementation programme office, which oversees the implementation of A Policing Service for the Future, the Government's plan to implement the report of the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland. A Policing Service for the Future is broken down into four stages of implementation. The first three phases have been completed and much has been achieved. The future focus of the programme for the final or consolidation phase will be on several key organisational and corporate enablers to assist in achieving a sustainable transformation of policing. This includes areas such as IT, HR and finance, which are key enablers across the entire reform programme, as well the necessary legislation, operating model, community safety and non-core duties.

In addition, the section has departmental oversight of the NESC, participates in relevant interdepartmental committees and other groups, and provides me with briefing and speech material on criminal justice and policing matters as well as social policy and public service reform issues.

Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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There are ten minutes left and Members will have one minute each. I call Deputy Cathal Crowe.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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No, Deputy McDonald is first.

Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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My sincere apologies. I am out of order myself.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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The Acting Chairman would not get away with me skipping Deputy McDonald.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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He certainly would not, leak or no leak.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I know it well.

Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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There is very little time left in this slot. Please, forgive me. I apologise.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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In July, Shane O'Farrell's patients, Lucia and Jim, received a copy of the final scoping exercise report into Shane's death. The process took over three years. It is important to acknowledge that every State-sponsored mechanism by which the family have sought to secure the truth of the events leading to Shane's death has taken an inexcusable time to be completed, with the strategy being delay, delay, delay at every turn.

Along with every party in the House, the Taoiseach shares the view that a full inquiry is needed to reveal what he described as the "shocking malpractice and dysfunction within the criminal justice system". In truth, it is the family who have done the heavy lifting and who have uncovered the true scale of these appalling failures - failures that continued for many years after Shane was killed. We know from a recent media report that the Courts Service has warned its board of potential reputational risk once the report is published. It is the O'Farrell family who uncovered the full extent of the Courts Service's failures. The O'Farrell family have been repeatedly let down by the State in the most horrific of ways.

These are matters of significant public interest. Will the Government establish an inquiry, as the Dáil overwhelmingly called for many years ago?

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I understand that the division deals with the realm of policing reform. The Taoiseach does not have a direct function in respect of Garda operations, but the Garda roster that was introduced at the beginning of Covid was known as the four-four roster, under which gardaí would work four days and be off for four days. It was transformative for communities because we saw more of our gardaí on the streets, but it was also transformative for gardaí in their home environments. For the first time in their lives, they were able to plan family events and know when they were going to be on and off duty. Now that we are hopefully emerging from Covid, although it is still lingering a little, the Commissioner, Mr. Drew Harris, is looking at new rosters of seven days on and two off, six days on and three days off, and seven days on and three days off.

The public will not know when gardaí are in the local stations and their families will not be able to plan for things. I just think this is a simple thing. If the Taoiseach is talking to the Commissioner, perhaps he might ask him to speed up the process in cases where gardaí are suspended. We need to find out for better or worse. If gardaí have done something wrong, they need to be removed. If they have not, however, we need to clear them and get them back on the streets.

Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
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The "Prime Time" special on O'Connell Street last night revealed the reality of what so many of us already know, which is that we have allowed the main street of our capital city to fall into decline. We also know, however, that policing is a problem across the city centre and not just on O'Connell Street. Indeed, in my area, in the south inner-city, many constituents have expressed serious concerns to me about safety. One local resident spoke about someone having been arrested outside his house who was wielding a knife at 11 a.m. Clearly, therefore, a stronger response is required from the Garda.

I have tabled several parliamentary questions on this matter. The Ministers for Justice; Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, and Enterprise, Trade and Employment have all said they are satisfied that the various Garda operations in the area are sufficient. Can it be ensured that a greater number of gardaí are recruited to make sure we have community policing and visible foot patrols across the city centre area? In 2022, 800 new gardaí were meant to be recruited, but just 24 were added in the first eight months of the year and I understand that only 460 new members of the force are expected to have either completed or started training by the end of this year. Can the Government ensure, therefore, that we will see the numbers of extra gardaí on the streets that we were promised in the budget? It was promised that we would see 1,000 extra gardaí. Is there any chance of this being secured?

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Our ability as Deputies to function in these buildings is crucially dependent on the ushers and service officers. They are the first in and the last out, but, in general, they are pretty poorly paid. I raised with the Taoiseach a while ago the issue of the divisors for calculating overtime for ushers still being based on the old Croke Park hours. Essentially, this deprives the ushers and service officers of additional overtime payments. Equally, the service officers for some time have been looking for allowances for some of the additional duties they do and for which they do not get recognition for. I ask the Taoiseach to examine these issues out of respect for the important role the ushers and service officers play for all of us in these buildings.

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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Yesterday, the Fine Gael Deputy, Paul Kehoe, said here that O'Connell Street was "full of druggies". I ask the Taoiseach to condemn this use of dehumanising and stigmatising language. I find it utterly incredible that a senior Deputy supporting the Government would speak in such a way, punching down at some of the most vulnerable people in our society, namely, those suffering from drug addiction. I worry that this reflects a certain approach by the Government of criminalising and stigmatising people when it is underfunding drug task forces right across the country. I am on the Tallaght drug task force, which is massively underfunded and the same applies throughout the country whereby these task forces have not recovered from massive cuts ten years ago.

I refer to the refusal by the Government to take a public health-driven approach instead of relying on criminalisation and stigmatising when Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael together have created the conditions of this crisis that exists in many of our communities because of the lack of investment in housing, social services and communities. I would like a condemnation of this comment and a commitment that this is not the sort of approach the Government will take.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Deputy McDonald raised the scoping inquiry into the death of Shane O'Farrell. I met with the family during the summer. The Government agreed to facilitate the family with a copy of the scoping inquiry report. The Government has not yet considered the report in deference to the family's wishes at that time. I will meet with the family again, and I understand a date has now been agreed by my office and the family. The Government has to give consideration to the scoping inquiry. It did take three years, but this was beyond my control. The inquiry was established more than three years ago, and once such an inquiry is established, the chairperson goes through it. This is a comprehensive report. It is fair to say that not all of it meets with the approval of the family, but the Government must consider this report in respect of the next steps.

Turning to Deputy Crowe's contribution, I commend him on his encyclopaedic knowledge of the detail of Garda rosters. This is impressive work and I hear what he is saying but I do not interfere in the operational decisions of the Commissioner of An Garda Síochána regarding how the Garda is organised. More generally, however, in terms of employees, and gardaí in particular, if the home environment is better and so on, then people will perform better. Likewise, with the work environment. The Deputy said changes are coming on stream that could be difficult. I will talk to the Minister for Justice who is the conduit in respect of matters concerning Garda policy more generally. Turning to the Deputy's wider issue, disciplinary action taken in respect of any agency must always be balanced and fair. People's names do need to be cleared if errors have been made, and I do not know any specific details regarding any specific cases, but speaking generally, people are entitled to natural justice and due process in all situations.

Deputy Bacik again raised the O'Connell Street issue. More gardaí are being trained on an ongoing basis. This is process is continuous now concerning the number of trainees. We do need more foot patrols and we also need a stronger community gardaí presence. A substantial number of those emerging from Templemore have been deployed in the capital. This remains the case. In addition, we need more specialisation and this is also happening. There has been a fundamental reform of the policing system in recent years. This has continued, as I said in my original reply.

Moving to Deputy Boyd Barrett's contribution, we all have representatives on the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission which, essentially, runs these Houses. It organises and is responsible for policy here. I do not know whether these issues have been raised with the commission. There are established employee–employer relationships and pay agreements, etc., and relativities apply in this context. These, therefore, are issues that can be progressed through the existing channels in this respect. I will look into this and ascertain the current position in respect of any discussions that may be under way.

In respect of Deputy Paul Murphy's question, I did not hear Deputy Kehoe make those comments. I would not agree with nor approve of those comments because drug addiction is very difficult for the individual in the first instance. In our view, this must be about understanding the issues in respect of rehabilitation and helping people to come off addiction and providing the services to enable this to happen on a continuing and consistent basis. I do not accept that our model is criminalisation driven. I do not accept this at all. For 30 years now, we have had a strong public health dimension to drugs in different iterations. Fianna Fáil has strongly supported drug task forces. The Deputy should know this. Previous Fianna Fáil Ministers of State over the past 25 years did a hell of a lot in this area. I think it was the former Deputy and Minister, Pat Rabbitte, who set up drug task force areas. This approach was continued by subsequent Ministers of State such as Noel Ahern, John Curran, Eoin Ryan and many more.

We are anxious to intervene in communities at ground level. We should condemn the traffickers and the drug barons who are destroying our young people and our city. We have seen this in respect of the criminal gangs that have done great damage to the city of Dublin and to the country through selling drugs, getting people hooked on them and destroying the lives of those individuals and their families as a result. We must have a health-based approach as the key approach to this issue. Education is also important at the earlier stages, in respect of building up people's self-esteem in our education programmes.