Results 181-200 of 1,061 for garda speaker:Simon Harris

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill 2023: Committee Stage (9 May 2023)

Simon Harris: ...and then revert to the Deputy. I acknowledge the concern behind the amendment. The provision in section 77 of the Bill hopefully addresses the Deputy’s concerns. This section requires the Garda Commissioner to ensure that statistical information concerning offences, criminal proceedings and the state of crime in the State is compiled, stored and made available to the Central...

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill 2023: Committee Stage (9 May 2023)

Simon Harris: ...reporting systems, my genuine concern, just to be helpful, is that the effect of the amendment would be that the board would not be obliged to have regard to the resources expected to be available to An Garda Síochána in ensuring the integrity of accounting, financial systems, risk, financial and other controls, and compliance with the law and relevant standards. We are coming...

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill 2023: Committee Stage (9 May 2023)

Simon Harris: ...the specifics of the amendment, I will address the issues Deputies Costello and Ó Ríordáin have raised. There can be no tolerance for the sort of conduct both Deputies referred to within An Garda Síochána. Without getting into the individual case, I share Deputy Ó Ríordáin's general sense of revulsion with regard to any such act. This is an issue...

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill 2023: Committee Stage (9 May 2023)

Simon Harris: ...;. These amendments relate to sections 18, 126 and 234, respectively. The first amendment extends section 18(2)(c), which excludes persons convicted on indictment of an offence from membership of the board of An Garda Síochána, a committee of the board or the audit committee of An Garda Síochána, to include foreign convictions. The purpose of the amendment is to put...

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill 2023: Committee Stage (9 May 2023)

Simon Harris: ...concerns the powers available under the section to a judge who has been invited by the Chief Justice to hold an inquiry into any matter, as the Deputy said, giving rise to a proposal to remove a Garda Commissioner or deputy Garda commissioner from office under section 31. Section 31 sets out the procedures which may give rise to the judge being invited to carry out an inquiry by the Chief...

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill 2023: Committee Stage (9 May 2023)

Simon Harris: ...legal advice available to me. I am also aware that, beyond that legal advice, there is a clear democratic safeguard, which is the powers a Government has relating to the removal or suspension of a Garda Commissioner. The amendment raises an important issue and, while we cannot envisage it today, it is right and proper in progressing this legislation to tease these things through. I...

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill 2023: Committee Stage (9 May 2023)

Simon Harris: I will take the amendments in the order we discussed them. I thank Deputy Daly for amendment No. 30, which relates to the phrase "to seek" and concerns the specific function of the Garda Commissioner that he or she is "to seek to secure the continuous improvement of the policing and security of the State". I understand what he is trying to achieve, in that by removing the phrase "to seek"...

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill 2023: Committee Stage (9 May 2023)

Simon Harris: ...Deputy Alan Shatter too. I do not say this to be overly provocative but some of the phraseology used, which I will not repeat, is just not what I recognise in any way, shape or form as how An Garda Síochána carries out its business. Our Garda, regardless of the Minister or the Commissioner, is entirely independent in its investigations, which I am beyond satisfied of. Our...

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill 2023: Committee Stage (9 May 2023)

Simon Harris: ...in discharging their respective functions and responsibilities in respect of policing and security in the State. Chapter 12 of the commission on the future of policing report, noted that an Garda Síochána and other criminal justice services are and should be accountable to the democratically elected Government of the State. The role of holding An Garda to account is exercised...

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill 2023: Committee Stage (9 May 2023)

Simon Harris: ...that engagement went. That is the first thing I want to say. After Deputy McNamara's comments, I do not need to repeat the purpose of the amendments but I will provide the rationale. The number of Garda staff has increased substantially in recent years and it will continue to grow. This is in the context of a long-standing policy over many governments to increase the civilianisation...

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill 2023: Committee Stage (9 May 2023)

Simon Harris: I invite people to look at the composition of the management structure of An Garda Síochána.

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill 2023: Committee Stage (9 May 2023)

Simon Harris: ...to one more matter on the off-chance that people follow these debates. I need to refer to one more point, the very fair point the Deputy makes with regard to promotional opportunities with An Garda Síochána and the question of whether you need to be a sworn member of An Garda Síochána as distinct from a member of Garda staff. I meet these people on a regular basis....

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill 2023: Committee Stage (9 May 2023)

Simon Harris: ...which only obliges the authority to consult with such persons as it considers appropriate. It does not appear to me to be unreasonable to require that the proposed new authority consult with the Garda Commissioner before determining the policing priorities, given that An Garda Síochána is obviously a key stakeholder in that matter. Indeed, it would seem to me to be essential....

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill 2023: Committee Stage (9 May 2023)

Simon Harris: Just for the record, the intention here is separating the governance of An Garda Síochána and the oversight of the organisation. There should be clear lines of responsibility between the different actors in the policing area. Under the current legislation, the Policing Authority has a role in approving the policing plan. This was removed in order to ensure that an oversight body...

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill 2023: Committee Stage (9 May 2023)

Simon Harris: I move amendment No. 60: In page 86, line 20, to delete “Garda Síochána Compensation Acts 1941 to 2003” and substitute “Garda Síochána (Compensation) Act 2022”. As Deputies are aware, I recently signed the commencement order for the Garda Síochána Compensation Act 2022, and it came into operation on 10 April. The purpose of this...

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill 2023: Committee Stage (9 May 2023)

Simon Harris: I move amendment No. 61: In page 88, line 5, to delete “Garda Síochána Compensation Acts 1941 to 2003” and substitute “Garda Síochána (Compensation) Act 2022”.

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill 2023: Committee Stage (9 May 2023)

Simon Harris: I move amendment No. 62: In page 88, lines 28 and 29, to delete “Garda Síochána Compensation Acts 1941 to 2003” and substitute “Garda Síochána (Compensation) Act 2022”.

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill 2023: Committee Stage (9 May 2023)

Simon Harris: Section 98 provides for an offence of causing dissatisfaction among members of An Garda Síochána. It provides that a person who causes or does any act calculated to cause dissatisfaction among members of An Garda Síochána or does any act calculated to induce any such member to withhold his or her services or to commit a breach of the standards of professional behaviour...

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill 2023: Committee Stage (9 May 2023)

Simon Harris: ...Deputy on that in advance of Report Stage because I think that would be useful to do so. The Deputy rightly outlined that in 2019, the Industrial Relations (Amendment) Act 2019 gave members of An Garda Síochána full access, for the first time, to the State's industrial relations mechanism, including the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, and the Labour Court. It was an...