Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

I sympathise with the underlying sentiment in the amendment, which is that if the Garda Síochána, in the words of its first Commissioner, Michael Staines, is to govern effectively with the consent of the people based on the people's respect, it must be seen to be a force which is drawn from the people and representative of the people as a whole. There cannot be an underclass in society who feel it is beneath the recruitment criteria for the Garda Síochána, which is not to say that people of bad character may not exclude themselves.

However, in terms of socio-economic groupings, one cannot have a situation where there are people in society who feel themselves to be beneath the recruitment catchment area of the Garda Síochána. That is a very important issue and it is the reason for the particular reference to the RAPID programme. I accept that we must ensure that every section of our community, the haves and the have-nots, equally identify with the Garda Síochána.

The second point is the question of geographical spread. It is the case, and one would need to be Einstein to solve it, that one cannot require members of the Garda Síochána to live in the house beside the station or wherever else, as a condition of service in the force, nor can one go back to the days of John McGahern where the sergeant and gardaí were all required to live in an RIC barracks and, therefore, be physically located at all times within their community. We clearly live in a different world in which people who have chosen a career in the Garda Síochána live in places where family, economic circumstances and opportunity dictate. One cannot insist that members of the Garda Síochána must live close to their station, if only for the reason that they are liable to be shifted from A to B and the cost of moving house would be quite significant in any of these circumstances.

What are we to do about all of that? In section 20, the Bill provides for a three-year strategy statement to be prepared by the Commissioner. If the Commissioner does not voluntarily draw up recruitment criteria, and I have every confidence he or she would, the Minister of the day would, in consultation with the Commissioner under section 20, set as one of the strategic objectives of the Garda Síochána that the force should be recruited in a way which would make it broadly representative of Irish society.

I accept that it is possibly a little disorderly to look forward to the next section which relates to a Garda reserve, which Members may wish to discuss, but in this context it is important to say that when I put forward that idea I was very conscious that critics would immediately say, " Aha, what is going on here is he will not pay for the recruitment of additional Garda but he will produce yellow pack reservists to stanch the wound so he can say the numbers are such and such and that everything is okay."

At a policy level, in conjunction with the Government, I have concentrated on getting on with our commitments to expand the size of the Garda force. I will not repeat at too great length what has happened. Roughly speaking, the size of the force has gone from 10,800 in 1987 to 12,200 last month. The second phase of what was promised is that it would expand by another 2,000. Over the next three years, enhanced recruitment at the rate of 1,100 members per year is planned so that, allowing for predicted retirements, the total number of members of the Garda Síochána will rise fairly rapidly to over 14,000 members. Taking those in training and those fully attested into account will lead to a total of more than 14,000 gardaí as early as 2006. The training process in Ireland, of which Members of the House are aware, is slightly longer than in other states. It is two years here while in some areas in Britain, for instance, it is six months. The core strength of the force, fully trained and attested, will reach 14,000 approximately 18 months after that.

With an expanding population in Ireland and increased urbanisation, that rapid expansion of the force should have the effect of providing some of the resources that are needed for the increasingly complex role of the police force. If it were not to happen, I have no doubt looking at the pattern of events I have seen in the two and a half years I have been Minister, there would inevitably be pressure on the Commissioner, who now handles the de facto day-to-day deployment of the force, to take people away from rural communities — to which Senator Leyden referred — and to move them to the new conurbations where villages have been transformed in the course of two or three years into sizeable towns which still have a Garda station in their centre.

I have no doubt there would be significant pressure to reallocate the force in a way which would strip some areas of their current level of policing and concentrate it in other areas. That is why the increased size of the force is not some flamboyant electoral gesture; it is vital to keep the force adequately strong across the country without diminishing the level of service in those areas which are currently least populous.

Broadly speaking, it is important that, in every area, some members of the Garda Síochána should live in the community, as pointed out by Senator Leyden. This gives communities a sense of identification with the Garda Síochána, which is one thing, and it also gives a sense that the force is deeply rooted in these areas. From that point of view, the phenomenon of commuting gardaí, to which Senator Jim Walsh referred, is a reality. It would be naive for us to think that the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform or anyone else could wave a magic wand and provide accommodation all over the country for families as geography might dictate; it simply will not happen. This is why a volunteer reserve is a good idea and is more vital in the case of the Garda Síochána than that of the Defence Forces. The presence of FCA units around the country identifies the Defence Forces to the people. There are people in every community who have been involved with the Defence Forces, who understand that way of life and who are ambassadors of goodwill for the forces within their communities.

The reaction to such proposals is strange but understandable. Special constables, as they were known in Britain, had a particular meaning on the island of Ireland. In Nationalist Ireland the term "special constable" had a pejorative meaning, to put it mildly. Therefore, I can see why reservists have traditionally not even been contemplated in Ireland because there is a clear legacy of history which runs contrary to that notion and one would be naive to think otherwise. Nonetheless, it is a strange fact that Ireland is, to my knowledge, the only common law country in the world which does not have any police reserve or special constabulary to back up the permanent police force.

Whereas section 14 makes skeletal provision for the establishment of such a force — in that it neither mandates nor requires it, since it is only provided for in enabling form — the interests of the Garda Síochána, its members and the representative associations would be enhanced rather than diminished by the presence of a volunteer reserve. I can imagine the very skilled professionals in the representative bodies thinking that the provision of reservists will diminish the opportunity for overtime or will take pressure off the Government to provide extra resources. It is a valid point which I do not deny. However, the obverse side of that coin is that policing activity requires roots in the community and, in the broader sense, it is in the interests of serving members of the Garda Síochána that they should have such strong allies and roots.

I am sure it is not the case but, even if all the gardaí from Donnybrook Garda station lived outside Dublin 4, it is in the interests of policing and serving members that allies of the police should live there, whether they are members of the force or people interested in upholding the force and committed to it on a voluntary basis, in other words, men and women who would serve as voluntary reservists.

The same applies to the talent which is lost when people retire at the age of 50 or 53, as will be the case in the fullness of time. Many people who leave the force do not want any further connection with it; they want to get on with the rest of their lives and regard themselves as having done their 30 year stint, with which point of view I fully sympathise. However, there are also people who are sufficiently expert in particular or broad areas of expertise such as community relations who, as reservists, could discharge functions of a supplementary nature relating to, for example, school liaison and community Garda activities. It is as plain as a pikestaff that such a resource should be available to the Garda Síochána.

The question of what reservists can do that full-time gardaí cannot is similar to that which applies to the FCA and the PDF, the answer to which is obvious. For example, gardaí in Kerry might have to preserve a scene, police a race meeting and search a mountainside at the same time or an illness such as influenza might deplete the force suddenly in a station such as Kenmare. In such cases, it is always useful to have available locally-based people as an alternative resource to help out with policing functions on an emergency basis.

I accept that the intent of Senator Brian Hayes's amendment and his comments are correct. It is important that the Garda Síochána has roots in the community. No community should regard itself as an area from which policemen are not recruited. We should have a recruitment policy which ensures that people in such communities do not feel their young men and women would never join the Garda Síochána. With a combination of decent recruiting policies and the potential use of a reserve, the gap — which is widening in front of our eyes — can be closed again to some extent, if not completely, although that may be idealistic.

In terms of recruitment ensuring the diverse ethnic, socio-economic and geographic representation of the entire community, the power to make a strategy statement which involves targeting this area, married with section 14 which, when we have 14,000 gardaí in the fullness of time, will enable us examine the concept of a reserve, will go a good distance towards addressing the yawning gap and its social and policing consequences, to which Senator Brian Hayes has drawn the House's attention.