Paddy Burke (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Bill but I have reservations about a number of its provisions. Arthur Beesley, political correspondent of The Irish Times, said the Bill would provide a facility to get over the issue of credibility within the force. Will the Minister outline in greater detail how the force will get over its credibility issue under the legislation? The force has a credibility problem and it is encountering problems in local communities. Gardaí do not interact with ordinary people like they did years ago and there is a number of reasons for this development.

Common sense has gone out the door and it will be difficult for the force to build relationships with people in local communities until it adopts such a common sense approach. People give out on a daily basis about the behaviour of members of the Garda. I have the greatest respect for the force, which does tremendous work under great pressure. The Government has a role to play in this issue. It has put so much pressure on the Garda that the force is collecting money for the State full-time and the day of using common sense has gone out the door.

The performance of gardaí is monitored and they must issue a specific number of summonses on a monthly and annual basis. If they do meet their targets, they must take up traffic duty or stop people near pubs to do so. As a result, they lose credibility among the public. Gardaí are frustrating ordinary people while they are also frustrated themselves.

While the Minister will say the number of serious and other crimes has reduced on the basis of statistics available to him, a significant number of crimes go unreported. Interaction between gardaí and citizens has diminished and this issue must be addressed so that gardaí can collect intelligence from people on the street and are aware of what is happening in various local communities. People are turning their backs on the force. Gardaí enter pubs in rural areas shortly after closing time and run the customers out of them. They then set up checkpoints on either side of the pubs to catch people who are suspected of drink driving. This does not help.

I refer to Garda appointments. I am disappointed the Bill provides that the Minister of the day will make certain appointments to the Garda.