Results 1-20 of 115 for garda speaker:Cathal Crowe

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Issues Relating to Road Safety: An Garda Síochána (15 May 2024)

Cathal Crowe: In the aftermath of the Dublin riots, the Commissioner moved very quickly to clarify that An Garda Síochána representatives were allowed to use reasonable force when carrying out their duties. In respect of road policing, can similar reassurances be given to rank-and-file guards that go in behind the wheel and put on the siren and the beacon? Can they too use reasonable action...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Issues Relating to Road Safety: An Garda Síochána (15 May 2024)

Cathal Crowe: ...way or motorway with my family and if a car was going the opposite way, that the guards would be fully empowered in that moment to take whatever intervening action needed. In all realms of An Garda Síochána, full clarity is needed. If a guard has not completed the blue beacon course - I do not have the correct module name of that course in Templemore - and if he or she sees...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Issues Relating to Road Safety: An Garda Síochána (15 May 2024)

Cathal Crowe: In the absence of this policy, the law that the Commissioner refers to supersedes everything at the moment. It is about keeping the public safe. Blue beacon course or not, a garda can pursue someone if it is in the interests of public safety.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Issues Relating to Road Safety: An Garda Síochána (15 May 2024)

Cathal Crowe: It just seems to me that we have the law and law enforcement but there is a middle layer from Garda headquarters. I am specifically referring, on this occasion, to scrambler bikes. A diktat went out from Garda headquarters in Phoenix Park. We have the law which provides for the apprehension, confiscation and removal of these bikes and we have gardaí wanting to enforce it but in the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Issues Relating to Road Safety: An Garda Síochána (15 May 2024)

Cathal Crowe: In terms of the legislative process in the Oireachtas, we continue to update road traffic Acts, penalty point regulations and so on. Things continually evolve and change. Has Garda training changed to match those changes? I refer specifically to penalty points. Of course, An Garda Síochána gets updated on changes to same. When gardaí were being trained in Templemore...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Issues Relating to Road Safety: An Garda Síochána (15 May 2024)

Cathal Crowe: ...always have seen discretion to be. Discretion is open-ended. A referee on a sports field has a degree of discretion. He or she has a rule book and then there is a little bit of discretion. An Garda Síochána members are passing out from Templemore, being posted to stations around the country and being told that these are the laws of Ireland, this is how they are empowered to...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Issues Relating to Road Safety: An Garda Síochána (15 May 2024)

Cathal Crowe: I will leave it at that. Finally, we had a national debate on the airwaves this morning about e-scooters. Given that many youngsters now have e-bikes and faster ways of getting around, will An Garda Síochána be seeking an update of the Garda bike fleet to include e-bikes, e-scooters and more modern ways of moving around? When one goes to the US, one sees police officers on...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Issues Relating to Road Safety: An Garda Síochána (15 May 2024)

Cathal Crowe: ...much going down the avenue of discretion. In the context of a situation where a person is pulled over on suspicion of being under the influence of drugs, the witnesses started to elaborate on how gardaí have discretion. To build on a point from earlier, it is essential for the force that there be a full definition of what this involves and how it works in a practical sense. I would...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Issues Relating to Road Safety: An Garda Síochána (15 May 2024)

Cathal Crowe: I nearly know the answer to my next question but it is worth asking anyway. There is a drive on to recruit new members of the Garda Reserve. Can members of the latter have any role in terms of road policing or is this totally locked out? Is this a role for the rank-and-file gardaí?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Issues Relating to Road Safety: An Garda Síochána (15 May 2024)

Cathal Crowe: I have a question about the Criminal Assets Bureau, CAB. It relates to road safety. There is not a town in Ireland where the Garda is not investigating a guy who does not go out to work but who has a big car in the driveway, takes luxury holidays and has a nice watch on his wrist. These people are in every community, unfortunately. They are the scourge of society. An Garda...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Issues Relating to Road Safety: An Garda Síochána (15 May 2024)

Cathal Crowe: ...on dual-carriageways where vans and jeeps close off the road and all the public traffic is held up behind them while this wild-west-style race to an endless finish line takes place. Where does An Garda Síochána stand in the context of this type of scenario? We hear very little about it clamping down on this activity. In some parts of the country, it is a Sunday morning thing....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Issues Relating to Road Safety: An Garda Síochána (15 May 2024)

Cathal Crowe: There is a nettle to be grasped. This is a major public safety issue in the context of our roads. I am glad the Garda is being proactive. No one is entitled to own a horse or another animal. I am a farmer - I inherited a farm. I would not have been able to decide, seven years ago, that I wanted horses, cattle or sheep because I did not have an inch of ground to put them on. Yet, some...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Issues Relating to Road Safety: An Garda Síochána (15 May 2024)

Cathal Crowe: I understand, from an efficiency point of view, that the Garda wants to free people up from manning lines and have gardaí out there policing the streets. I do not mean this in a disparaging way - the people do not have policing smarts. None of the members of the committee is a garda; none of us has Garda training. It is the witnesses and the members of the force who have that...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Issues Relating to Road Safety: An Garda Síochána (15 May 2024)

Cathal Crowe: ...soon, it would appear. It needs to be significantly beefed up. I do not know what the correct term is but the policing smarts need to be in this system. If there is a car in the vicinity, a garda nearby or if there is an eircode, that kind of detail needs to be obtained on that phone call because the caller hangs up, invariably, after a minute and a half. If you have not obtained that...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Delivery of Health Services for Patients with Long Covid: Discussion (17 Apr 2024)

Cathal Crowe: ...being put out there as someone who is just unwilling to work or being awkward, tricky or lazy. These are words that have been used to me. To use an example from a totally different realm, in An Garda Síochána if people are injured at work, the organisation finds a role for them. They are brought back to work as quickly as they are able, but they may not be back on the front...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Anti-Social Behaviour on Public Transport: Discussion (17 Apr 2024)

Cathal Crowe: ...a workers' point of view, would the union welcome a discreet text system that would go straight to carriage A so the agent knows? The train is stopping someplace every 20 minutes, so surely the Garda could be at the next station to get the troublemaker off the train.

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (6 Mar 2024)

Cathal Crowe: ...to take my own life as the head of the family. I am mentally murdered by it all." This is a letter that I and Paul Williams the crime journalist have been given by one of the 108 members of An Garda Síochána currently suspended. There is a culture of mistrust, unreasonable discipline and disrespect for the rank and file members that is permeating from the top down. It is...

Written Answers — Department of Justice and Equality: An Garda Síochána (1 Feb 2024)

Cathal Crowe: 322. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the breakdown of the Garda fleet in each Garda station (details supplied) in tabular form; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [4905/24]

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Capital Projects and Operations: Iarnród Éireann (24 Jan 2024)

Cathal Crowe: Yes. It would be great if there was a text facility on board so you could say there was trouble in carriage D or if An Garda Síochána need to intervene at the next station, that there would be a more discreet way of doing it. It is pretty difficult to make a call or to get a message out of a train when you are shuttling along down the track.