Mary White (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister and his officials to the House. This is one of the most important Bills, if not the most important, to come before the Houses of the Oireachtas this year.

It is recognised internationally that the Garda Síochána was established in 1924 with an efficiency and comprehensiveness which was remarkable. The fact that our police force remains unarmed is considered a major contributory factor in reducing the number of armed crimes in the State. However, such an exemplary police force can only be maintained with the implied and express approval of the public it serves. It is built on public trust. When that trust becomes diluted, the effectiveness of this exemplary institution is compromised.

The vast majority of members of the Garda Síochána do their job to the best of their ability. It is a tough and thankless job few would be prepared to do. The basic pay for gardaí on the beat is €30,000 a year, this for a job with many potential dangers. When Charlie Chawke, the local publican in Dundrum where I live, was attacked, unarmed gardaí pursued and caught the robbers. The tragic deaths of two gardaí on the Stillorgan Road last year and the shooting dead of Detective Garda Jerry McCabe and the serious wounding of Detective Garda Ben O'Sullivan in Adare were an indication of the dangers of the job. There are very few jobs in which one's life is in danger, and we have to respect what the gardaí do for us every day.

When I see a garda on the beat I become relaxed, regardless of whether I am driving in traffic or whatever. I have an emotional reaction to gardaí on the beat. It is important that they are visible on our streets but it is also important for Members of the House to realise that 1,000 assaults on gardaí were reported last year.

The setting up of the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission is the most significant aspect of the Bill. There has been a steady momentum of controversy and negative publicity building up about the Garda Síochána over the past number of years. There is the Barr tribunal on the shooting in Abbeylara of John Carthy, the Morris tribunal, about which we spoke when the Minister was in the House on a previous occasion, investigating alleged corruption by gardaí in the Donegal area, the May Day parade which suggested heavy-handedness and lack of control in the Garda, the "Prime Time" special on the lack of responsiveness and accountability of the Garda Síochána Complaints Board, and the so-called "blue flu", which was appalling and out of line. It was a serious decision on the part of the gardaí to take that action and pretend they were sick.

I made a personal complaint to the Garda Complaints Board about an incident I witnessed about three years ago. I was fearful of making the complaint because I did not know what the consequences would be but my conscience would not allow me overlook the incident. I will not give the detail of it but I reported it because what I saw was a serious injustice from a human rights point of view. I still worry about it. I was interviewed about the incident by members of the Garda at a high level and they told me at the time that the careers of the garda who carried out the incident and the other two gardaí who observed what was going on were in jeopardy. The case went through the system but it goes back to the fact that an organisation investigating itself has been proven not to be correct. What happened in this case was a serious miscarriage of justice, and nothing was done about it. It is not proper to go into too much detail but at the time I was observing it the thought came to me that this is what the Stazi must have been engaged in.

I am a huge admirer of gardaí. I love to see them on the street and I am totally supportive of them but it is like everything else in life, including the issue we were talking about involving ex-political prisoners in the North, loyalists and republicans, most of whom want a peaceful process. We cannot tar everybody with the same brush. Approximately 95% of gardaí do an outstanding job but there have been examples of the opposite and we have to clear them up. I do not repeat the incident I witnessed lightly in this House but I will never forget it and I will never forget how it was dealt with.

The membership of the new commission will comprise three members nominated by the Government and ultimately appointed by the President. They will be recommended by both these Houses. One member must be a woman. The Government will fully scrutinise each candidate to ensure their eligibility and qualifications. Automatically excluded are the following: members of the Garda Síochána; Members of the Houses of the Oireachtas; Members of the European Parliament; and members of a local authority.

The most interesting and pressing aspect of this legislation is that it provides for a more independent review body, an ombudsman, to investigate and discipline Garda behaviour. Nuala O'Loan, the Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman, encapsulates all the qualities necessary for that office to the highest degree. Without her there would be less confidence in the integrity of the ombudsman position. It is appreciated that she has faced many difficulties at great personal risk.

I would like the Minister to review the proposal that the Government can appoint people to chief superintendent and superintendent positions. That would be gross intervention. If the Garda Síochána is compared to a company, then its chief executive, the Garda Commissioner, should be able to appoint the management and middle management. That is an extreme intervention by Government to appoint the chief superintendents and superintendents. The Minister is obliged to look at that. If this becomes part of the legislation it will take a long time to rectify. The previous Garda Complaints Board was set up in 1984 so it will take another 20 years if we want to reverse that. I appeal to the Minister not to pursue this course.

Section 16, which deals with the introduction of a code of ethics, will hopefully reduce the number of complaints currently arising due to misconduct by gardaí. In the incident I observed there was no evidence that a code of standards existed. It probably would not have happened if a formal code of ethics applied to each Garda station. I support the potential use of volunteer members, as proposed in the Bill. When I lost my telephone, the insurance company required me to go the Garda and I went to my local station in Dundrum. A uniformed garda had to waste time writing all the details about my losing a telephone. That is a farce.

On the positive side, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties welcomes the Bill. It says the proposed legislation contains some important and necessary improvements to the scheme first established in 2003. It is good to see some of the concerns raised by the Irish Human Rights Commission and the ICCL have been met and that genuine changes have been made. The IHRC says the Bill marks an historic step towards placing human rights at the centre of Irish politics.

The chairman of the National Crime Council asked me to raise the issue of section 31 regarding local authorities. He felt that just to leave it to the local authorities and the Garda would exclude local area partnerships, five of which are based in Dublin, where local communities and organisations are represented. Drug task forces should be included because these are the people working on the ground. The representatives of the local communities should be part of this initiative, not just the local authorities.

I thank the Minister and his officials and congratulate him on this Bill. It was only proper that I should speak about my personal experience with regard to the Garda Complaints Board. One cannot surpass first-hand experience.