Results 241-260 of 501 for speaker:Maurice Hayes

Seanad: Garda Síochána Bill 2004: Committee Stage (Resumed). (14 Dec 2004)

Maurice Hayes: I agree with the Minister of State on this issue. It is important to protect whistleblowers in an organisation such as the Garda Síochána. People must feel free to bring matters of concern to attention. However, it complicates matters both for the ombudsman commission and for members of the Garda Síochána if we choose to mix up internal disciplinary matters and the external remit of the...

Seanad: Garda Síochána Bill 2004: Committee Stage (Resumed). (14 Dec 2004)

Maurice Hayes: I would like to say a few words from my experience. What is needed in an ombudsman is an office that will deal with serious issues. We also want to inculcate into an organisation like the Garda a culture in which it will face up to and deal with complaints itself. My son was home over the weekend from Yale. He had been overtaken by a police car coming up to a junction and he reported this to...

Seanad: Garda Síochána Bill 2004: Committee Stage (Resumed). (14 Dec 2004)

Maurice Hayes: I apologise to the Minister for going on at length. If I had known I was going to plagiarise myself, I would have left it to him to do it.

Seanad: Garda Síochána Bill 2004: Committee Stage (Resumed). (14 Dec 2004)

Maurice Hayes: This makes my blood run cold and it would be almost unworkable. The entire point of the ombudsman system is to provide a less formal means than that available in a court in order to deal with particular situations. Once the idea of representation for any group is imported, every other group will seek equal representation. It is not only the cost involved about which I am concerned. Allowing...

Seanad: Garda Síochána Bill 2004: Committee Stage (Resumed). (14 Dec 2004)

Maurice Hayes: Drawing on the analogy of the courts may be sending us down the wrong road. The ombudsman procedure is not confrontational in nature. An ombudsman operates in a manner similar to that adopted by French investigative magistrates. I would regard it as the duty of an ombudsman to observe the type of balance to which the Senator refers in order to ensure that ordinary people are decently...

Seanad: Garda Síochána Bill 2004: Committee Stage (Resumed). (14 Dec 2004)

Maurice Hayes: The entire nature of the ombudsman system is that there are no appeals. There cannot be appeal after appeal after appeal. The essence of the thing is that there is one fair minded person or group of people in possession of the facts looking at something and making a judgment. It may be reviewed on the grounds it was not done properly or people were not listened to but, in the sense of...

Seanad: Garda Síochána Bill 2004: Committee Stage (Resumed). (14 Dec 2004)

Maurice Hayes: I found this section hard to understand in the general tenor of the Bill, which is to provide for a system of investigation of complaints that would have public confidence and that would be open and transparent. All of a sudden power is given to other people to block the ombudsman at a critical point in an investigation. One of the difficulties in the old situation in Northern Ireland was...

Seanad: Garda Síochána Bill 2004: Committee Stage (Resumed). (14 Dec 2004)

Maurice Hayes: I share the reservations expressed by Senator Cummins. I hope the Minister of State will find a suitable form of words.

Seanad: Garda Síochána Bill 2004: Committee Stage (Resumed). (14 Dec 2004)

Maurice Hayes: Of course it is.

Seanad: Garda Síochána Bill 2004: Committee Stage (Resumed). (14 Dec 2004)

Maurice Hayes: I think the Minister of State has been misinformed.

Seanad: Garda Síochána Bill 2004: Committee Stage (Resumed). (14 Dec 2004)

Maurice Hayes: We have moved slightly beyond the section under discussion. It is clear that there is a need to protect sensitive information. Everybody should not be allowed to tramp over those dealing with certain matters. I referred earlier to certain protocols. When I was doing this job in the North, I encountered cases of people who were refused permits to work in electricity stations, for example,...

Seanad: Garda Síochána Bill 2004: Committee Stage (Resumed). (14 Dec 2004)

Maurice Hayes: I gave the ombudsman credit for having some regard for State security. Such matters could be handled by means of decent protocols, etc., rather than by blanket exclusion.

Seanad: Garda Síochána Bill 2004: Committee Stage (Resumed). (8 Dec 2004)

Maurice Hayes: I support most but not all of Senator Jim Walsh's comments. The committees should be firmly rooted in local government and people should be appointed by local authorities, from which the chairman should also come. It is important that the Garda representative is of a senior level in that area to demonstrate that the force is taking the issue seriously. On the inclusion of other people as...

Seanad: Garda Síochána Bill 2004: Committee Stage (Resumed). (8 Dec 2004)

Maurice Hayes: As a way around this, can it be suggested to the Minister that the fact that the Garda is co-operating with police forces in other jurisdictions should be a matter of public knowledge? Agreements are entered into under Interpol and other agencies. It may be possible for these broad subsidiary agreements to be reported to the Oireachtas without requiring the facts of the operations to be divulged.

Seanad: Garda Síochána Bill 2004: Committee Stage (Resumed). (8 Dec 2004)

Maurice Hayes: Senator Mansergh referred to the Patten proposals in regard to this amendment. The rationale behind the Patten proposal, as Senator Mansergh highlighted, is that policing is far more than just police work. It requires the co-operation of various agencies including those in education, youth work, social work, probation services, local councils in respect of lighting and so on. It was thought...

Seanad: Garda Síochána Bill 2004: Committee Stage (Resumed). (8 Dec 2004)

Maurice Hayes: As a matter of normal industrial relations and management one would expect people to consult with their workforce and their representative bodies but to give people a statutory right to consultation is to introduce rigidities into systems that we might want to keep flexible. It produces a recipe for a group which knows it must be consulted and then consultation can move subtlety into a...

Seanad: Garda Síochána Bill 2004: Committee Stage (Resumed). (8 Dec 2004)

Maurice Hayes: This is a core value of the legislation and the Minister should have the courage of his convictions to accept the responsibility to produce the guidelines to ensure the committees are established. Senator Cummins might agree that if everybody is to be consulted, as should be the case, it is unlikely to be done in three months but, nevertheless, a reasonable time should be set for the...

Seanad: Garda Síochána Bill 2004: Committee Stage (Resumed). (8 Dec 2004)

Maurice Hayes: Section 32(1) imposes a duty on the local authority and the Garda Commissioner to establish a joint policing committee, but they cannot do that unless they have the guidelines.

Seanad: Garda Síochána Bill 2004: Committee Stage (Resumed). (8 Dec 2004)

Maurice Hayes: It creates even more difficulty. If it states he may do it within three months, but he does not, this seems to remove the obligation totally.

Seanad: Order of Business. (8 Dec 2004)

Maurice Hayes: I thank Senator Mooney for his promotional remarks. Anything I have to say will be found at greater length tomorrow. I would welcome a debate on Northern Ireland. It would be particularly appropriate given the tone that is being set by Members of the House. This is not a time for recriminations and for throwing things about. It is a time to recognise the pressures that are on people on all...