Results 13,581-13,600 of 18,736 for speaker:Michael McDowell

Child Care Services. (20 Oct 2005)

Michael McDowell: As long as it is our responsibility to discharge it, we will continue to do so as well as we have done to date. The Deputy asked whether there was a queue of Departments which thought it would fit neatly into their own administrative structures or areas of responsibility. I do not think there is but I believe any prospective Minister would find it attractive to have the brief in his or her...

Garda Operations. (20 Oct 2005)

Michael McDowell: Operation Anvil commenced in the Dublin metropolitan region on 17 May 2005. The primary focus of this intelligence-driven operation is the targeting of active criminals and their associates involved in serious crime by preventing and disrupting their activities through additional overt patrolling and static checkpoints and by uniform mobile and foot patrols supported by armed plain clothes...

Garda Operations. (20 Oct 2005)

Michael McDowell: I have already promised that the additional gardaí will not be put on administrative duties but will be put directly into frontline, operational, high-visibility policing such as Operation Anvil. The Commissioner is committed to that policy. Additional information not given on the floor of the House. The Garda Síochána is now better resourced than at any time in its history. The Garda...

Garda Operations. (20 Oct 2005)

Michael McDowell: I disagree with the Deputy on his fundamental premise that the use of overtime in policing is suspect and that it should all be done on basic pay. That is not the experience of any police force anywhere in the world. If we operated on the basis that police worked their own shift and no more without overtime-driven programmes, it would not produce the desired results. No police force of any...

Garda Operations. (20 Oct 2005)

Michael McDowell: It is €1.1 billion.

Garda Operations. (20 Oct 2005)

Michael McDowell: The Deputy will appreciate that every year provision is made for Garda overtime. The exact amount needed for overtime depends on circumstances. I do not set aside money specifically for overtime. When one runs a Department and a police force——

Garda Operations. (20 Oct 2005)

Michael McDowell: ——with a budget of €1.1 billion, it is necessary to pay for individual operations from time to time and there is nothing unusual about that. Police forces all over the world do it and it would be very strange if they did not.

Garda Operations. (20 Oct 2005)

Michael McDowell: The Deputy referred again to the phantom 2,000 gardaí. I will invite Deputy Costello down to Templemore to see the phantoms marching in front of him. Who will look like a ghost then? The Deputy will be ghostly white when he sees the reality.

Garda Operations. (20 Oct 2005)

Michael McDowell: The only phantom is Deputy Costello himself. The gardaí are very real, and they are flesh and blood.

Crime Levels. (20 Oct 2005)

Michael McDowell: While all forms of gangland crime are unacceptable, I reject the assertion that violent crime connected with gangland activities is "out of hand". Unprecedented levels of resources are being made available through my Department to the Garda to combat this form of criminality on a focused and coherent basis. The National Bureau of Criminal Investigation is the Garda specialist unit tasked with...

Crime Levels. (20 Oct 2005)

Michael McDowell: I agree with most points Deputy Finian McGrath makes. People in many communities are experiencing the intimidation the Deputy mentioned. I am glad the Deputy stated that gardaí attended the meeting to which he referred. I am sure the Garda will take on board what they heard and respond to it. With some difficulty, I have piloted through legislation regarding local policing committees. I am...

Crime Levels. (20 Oct 2005)

Michael McDowell: I cannot remember Deputy Jim O'Keeffe's question.

Crime Levels. (20 Oct 2005)

Michael McDowell: Yesterday I finalised some of those matters with the Attorney General. Some points caused difficulty and I hope to bring a raft of amendments to Government in the near future and to give them to the members of the committee as soon as possible thereafter.

Decentralisation Programme. (20 Oct 2005)

Michael McDowell: Under the Government's decentralisation programme close to 1,000 posts from nine agencies under the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform will transfer to seven different locations around the country. The details and timescales for these moves are published in the decentralisation implementation group's progress report to the Minister for Finance dated 30 June 2005 and are set out in...

Decentralisation Programme. (20 Oct 2005)

Michael McDowell: The Department will stay in Dublin but a number of other Departments are scheduled to leave Dublin. The main sections of the Department of Education and Science are going to Navan, while the Office of Public Works will also leave Dublin. There will be substantial buildings remaining which will become available to the State for the relocation of the Departments that remain in Dublin. In such...

Decentralisation Programme. (20 Oct 2005)

Michael McDowell: It made sense to get rid of it. A very large capital sum was obtained for it. We are also vacating an office block on Shelbourne Road, the site value of which would be €50-100 million. We are relocating the St. Stephen's Green office to rented accommodation for the moment but the plan is to put us into buildings vacated by other Departments when they move out.

International Agreements. (20 Oct 2005)

Michael McDowell: The ad hoc committee for the negotiation of a UN Convention against Corruption met at regular intervals at the UN in Vienna from January 2002 to October 2003. The convention opened for signature in Mexico on 9 December 2003 and was signed by Ireland on that date. In April 2005 a transmission was received by from the European Commission which declared regarding the UN Convention against...

International Agreements. (20 Oct 2005)

Michael McDowell: I share the Deputy's concern that we should ratify the convention as soon as possible, but there is a technical difference between Ireland and many of the civil law states. Such states are able to ratify international treaties, which, ipso facto, become part of their domestic law. We have a slightly different situation in Ireland as no international agreement forms part of our law unless it...

International Agreements. (20 Oct 2005)

Michael McDowell: I will not have the legislation out by then. If the analysis stage is complete, I may well be in a position to draft a memorandum for Government. To be honest, it will be sometime in 2006 before the text of the ratifying legislation is made public in Ireland.

International Agreements. (20 Oct 2005)

Michael McDowell: Many aspects of the convention do not require law as they can be carried out on a voluntary basis. There is very little that we cannot do in the spirit of the convention, in advance of its implementation.