Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

The necessary resources for the Garda Síochána budget have to be addressed in the normal Estimates process for 2005 and in each succeeding year. I have to battle for the resources in question. The same will apply to the once-off capital costs for the OPW. The increases in the Garda budget will initially be relatively small but they will rise to a significant amount, an annual cost of about €124 million by 2009. That is a significant investment in the strength of the Garda Síochána. The once-off capital costs at the college will be relatively modest, but in view of sensitivities relating to contracts I will not comment on the exact cost of the four storey building. However, I believe we will get good value for money.

As part of the preparation for this recruitment campaign, I have taken the opportunity to ask the Garda Commissioner to review the eligibility criteria for entry into the Garda Síochána. Members of this House will know that at present one must be not more than 25 years of age or if one has qualifying service in the FCA not more than 27 years of age in order to become a member of the Garda Síochána. In this modern age and having regard to the circumstances of modern life, we do not have to recruit career gardaí at the age of 18. Senators who have had the pleasure, as I have had on many occasions, of attending passing out parades in Templemore will see people coming into the Garda Síochána from diverse backgrounds such as banking, teaching, graduate positions and a wide diversity of trades and professions. These are people who decided in their early to mid 20s that they wanted to serve this country as policemen and policewomen. That is a good thing. We should look forward to a time when people in their late 20s and early 30s at least should be in a position to make such a lifetime commitment to the State. It is never too late for people of such an age to decide that they should have the opportunity to serve the country. The existing 25 year age limit is an artificial limitation on the entry of good potential recruits to the force.

It is also necessary that the force reflects the composition of Irish society. We are facing into circumstances which are uncharted territory for this country. We have large immigrant communities who are in their first generation. We must have a police force which reflects the ethnic make-up of our population. At present, it is difficult to recruit directly from among people who step off a boat and ask them to join our police force. There is no reason in principle that there should not be increased ethnic diversity in our recruitment. Certainly, looking forward to the second generation of immigrant communities in Ireland, if we have concentrations of ethnic communities in parts of this country, as was the case in the United Kingdom — I hope that ethnic diversity will be as geographically spread as possible and that we will not have any racial ghettos emerging — we want to avoid the situation that has emerged in many European countries where those communities are policed effectively by white strangers who do not have among their numbers people who come from those communities. I want to avoid the situation which emerged in the United Kingdom of young West Indians feeling that they are wholly alienated from the police force. I want to have a police force where the members are completely reflective of the society they are policing by consent.

For that reason, apart from simply promoting diversity in our recruitment programmes, we also must examine the requirement that to be eligible for recruitment to the force one must have the equivalent of a pass leaving certificate competence in Irish. That is a requirement we could not ask a 25 year old Ghanaian or whoever to meet. It would act as a de facto mechanism if it were left in place. I will speak to the Garda Commissioner so that people who are attracted to the new panel of potential recruits do not feel put off by the age limit or the language requirements.

People may ask what will happen to these new gardaí. I have a pledge to make to this House and I have the word of the commissioner that it will be delivered. They will not be assigned to administrative duties or recruited to sit behind desks. High visibility policing is what is needed for exactly the reasons Senators Ryan and Quinn mentioned earlier. The sense of well-being and the sense of order and security in a society are backed up not simply by the numbers of police who are hidden down lanes like the CRS in France in buses ready to quell something that goes wrong——