Results 4,281-4,300 of 18,728 for speaker:Michael McDowell

Garda Síochána Bill 2004 [Seanad]: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage. (23 Jun 2005)

Michael McDowell: The implication would be that without the Deputy's amendment the DPP was not empowered. The DPP would not accept that proposition.

Garda Síochána Bill 2004 [Seanad]: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage. (23 Jun 2005)

Michael McDowell: What about the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights?

Garda Síochána Bill 2004 [Seanad]: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage. (23 Jun 2005)

Michael McDowell: The Garda Commissioner must appear before committees of the House.

Garda Síochána Bill 2004 [Seanad]: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage. (23 Jun 2005)

Michael McDowell: That is why I also favour a security committee.

Garda Síochána Bill 2004 [Seanad]: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage. (23 Jun 2005)

Michael McDowell: As I listened to the debate on this amendment, it became ever clearer that the underlying assumption in the amendment of the existence of some independent policing authority has not been thought through by those who proposed it in this House. I have never heard a coherent argument for it, although I have heard people come up with half-thought-out views on the subject. On the Order of Business...

Garda Síochána Bill 2004 [Seanad]: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage. (23 Jun 2005)

Michael McDowell: One would ask what had happened yesterday in a specific programme——

Garda Síochána Bill 2004 [Seanad]: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage. (23 Jun 2005)

Michael McDowell: ——and receive the stock answer in reply that it was a matter for the RTE authority and that one should not ask the Minister about it since he does not employ or manage those people who are independent and supposed to be discharging their functions separately from the Government. Deputies should not ask the Minister why some journalist, commentator or presenter is biased or being overpaid...

Garda Síochána Bill 2004 [Seanad]: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage. (23 Jun 2005)

Michael McDowell: This is my first contribution, so bad luck.

Garda Síochána Bill 2004 [Seanad]: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage. (23 Jun 2005)

Michael McDowell: The one thing that is becoming ever clearer to me in the course of this debate relates to a question that I have asked myself for the last few days. How come, when it was one of the programme for Government commitments of the 1982 to 1987 Fine Gael-Labour Government to establish an independent police authority, that did not happen during those five years when very eminent members of Fine Gael...

Garda Síochána Bill 2004 [Seanad]: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage. (23 Jun 2005)

Michael McDowell: Perhaps there was a reticence on the part of Fine Gael to follow up such a brilliant idea from Labour. Why, when Labour got into Government again in 1992 and had another five years — and a total of ten years in a 20-year period — was that proposal never advanced one jot by any of those who talked about it during election time?

Garda Síochána Bill 2004 [Seanad]: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage. (23 Jun 2005)

Michael McDowell: There is a very simple answer, which has become clear to me in the course of this debate. It is a bad and rotten idea.

Garda Síochána Bill 2004 [Seanad]: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage. (23 Jun 2005)

Michael McDowell: The real problem is that if it were introduced, the Opposition in this House would have no accountability from the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform of the day at all. One would have the bland old response that the crime or homicide rate was rising and that we really must do something about it, such as sending a letter to the independent police authority and telling it to pull its...

Garda Síochána Bill 2004 [Seanad]: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage. (23 Jun 2005)

Michael McDowell: Opposition Members want the exact opposite. It is their desire that the Minister of the day should be accountable to the House for the state of policing, law and order and law enforcement issues, in other words, the entire criminal justice system.

Garda Síochána Bill 2004 [Seanad]: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage. (23 Jun 2005)

Michael McDowell: I will not give away.

Garda Síochána Bill 2004 [Seanad]: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage. (23 Jun 2005)

Michael McDowell: Opposition Members have had plenty of time to discuss this issue. They do not want, under the circumstances, to give up the notion of ministerial accountability, but they wish to divest the Minister of any real authority in the matter and to give it to a group of the great and the good who would carry out this function. That is the real problem with Deputy Ó Snodaigh's amendment No. 42. It...

Garda Síochána Bill 2004 [Seanad]: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage. (23 Jun 2005)

Michael McDowell: Throughout the debate on this Bill, both in public and private, there has been a radical failure on the part of those who support an independent police authority to come up with any view of how that police authority would relate to this House and to the notion of ministerial accountability. The second aspect of Deputy Ó Snodaigh's proposal is that the appointment of deputy commissioners and...

Garda Síochána Bill 2004 [Seanad]: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage. (23 Jun 2005)

Michael McDowell: It is most urgent that the first of these positions be knocked on the head. I have been Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform for three years. During that time, I have never in any shape or form interfered or made representation or communication, whether formal, informal, by a nod or wink or any other means, to any member of the Garda Síochána in respect of any promotion that has...

Garda Síochána Bill 2004 [Seanad]: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage. (23 Jun 2005)

Michael McDowell: The same applies in regard to the transfer of any garda from one location to another. Many Deputies have approached me during votes offering pieces of paper on which are written the names of gardaí who wish to be transferred. Those pieces of paper stay in my pocket until I relegate them to the wastepaper bin. I have never interfered in this way.

Garda Síochána Bill 2004 [Seanad]: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage. (23 Jun 2005)

Michael McDowell: I will never partake in such interference. That is the situation.

Garda Síochána Bill 2004 [Seanad]: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage. (23 Jun 2005)

Michael McDowell: I am entirely unaware of the party political allegiance of any of the senior gardaí with whom I have ever done business. They have never let me know, by any means, anything by which I could make such a judgment. The other form of reprehensible favouritism to which Members have referred is that relating to some form of internal politics whereby members of a particular Garda division may...