Michael McCarthy (Labour)

I welcome the opportunity to debate this issue and I welcome the Minister of State to the House. The second instalment from the Morris tribunal is very worrying and for the vast majority of the fine, decent and honourable members of the Garda Síochána, it is demoralising. We must not forget the centrepiece of this whole sorry saga, the McBrearty family and other people who were conspired against in County Donegal.

Senator Higgins and Deputy Howlin deserve immense credit for the manner in which they pursued this case in its early stages. They pursued it with great vigour and determination in order to ensure that the McBrearty family received justice. It has been a long and arduous road and an inherently difficult situation for that family. They have suffered enormously, their reputation has been damaged and their mental and physical health has suffered. One cannot begin to know the misery inflicted on them. One can read the Morris report, the newspaper reports and listen to interviews, but the real horror of what they went through is unimaginable.

I have relations and close friends who are members of the Garda Síochána. When they embarked on their careers in the police force they were young, idealistic, community-spirited individuals who joined a force that is largely unarmed, the majority of whose members are decent, honourable people who go about their work, often in difficult circumstances. Difficult conditions prevail in Dublin and other areas, where gardaí are set upon by mindless gougers and thugs who think it appropriate to attack them. Such people use the incident of recent days as an excuse to perpetrate such attacks and there have been several unfortunate examples of this in the Munster region recently.

When talking about the Garda Síochána we should bear in mind the good people in the force. However, we should not let those members of the force in County Donegal who bent the rules, broke the law and abused their positions, off the hook. Such people conspired against a family and framed them for a murder that never occurred. That in itself speaks volumes about the levels to which some people were willing to stoop in order to damage the character and good name of others.

The opportunity presented to us by the Garda Síochána Bill is in danger of being wasted. We have an enormous opportunity to enshrine some of the recommendations of the Morris report in the Bill. The Bill is not good enough and misrepresents the Swedish origin of ombudsman. It is a mistake to set up a three-person ombudsman commission and not afford it the full scope that Chris Patten was afforded with regard to his report into policing in Northern Ireland, which led to the setting up of the PSNI, a police force in which all but one group has participated. The Patten report did great work in terms of shifting focus and a psychological impression of the old RUC and delivered a fairly professional and very committed, apolitical and centre-stage police force that is able to do its work without having the baggage of the RUC.

The same initiative should be taken with regard to the Garda Síochána Bill 2004. An individual of Mr. Patten's standing should be engaged to examine the issue, the current management systems in the Garda Síochána, the failings of the force and the Morris report and work with that information to ensure we have a police force that is beyond reproach. Inevitably, the reputation of the Garda Síochána has been besmirched by the activities of a few rotten apples.

The transfer of five members of the Garda Síochána in Donegal to Dublin is disgraceful. I would not want a member of the force who has been clearly implicated by the Morris report to be serving in a station in my community. It does nothing for the morale of the officers serving in that station and it does nothing for the reputation of the Garda Síochána. I do not like the fact that two of these gardaí have been transferred to Garda headquarters in the Phoenix Park. This does not do justice to the vast majority of the force who are appalled by and suffering as a result of this affair. Members of the force in Donegal were associated with the biggest scandals that ever affected the force and it goes right back to Abbeydorney when a family was blackguarded by a number of gardaí. One of these gardaí went on to become involved in the Abbeylara siege and was then involved in the Donegal case. This defies belief. I do not think any other police force in western Europe would stand behind a police officer with that kind of curriculum vitae.

A recent case in a police authority in the UK involved an allegation made against the UK equivalent of a chief superintendent. The officer subsequently resigned because he did not want any scandal or bad publicity for his police force. This is not happening in this country. I am not saying we should rush to judgment and look for resignations. Some people are not fit to tie the boots of law-abiding, decent police officers and have been allowed to continue in the profession. They cast too many aspersions and it does not clear the matter up.

Out of 240 complaints referred to the DPP by the Garda Complaints Board, three gardaí were prosecuted. This statistic is frightening when one considers the amount of cases that the Garda Complaints Board does not send to the DPP. There is a blue wall of silence operating and it does not do justice to the vast majority of good, honourable people who work in our towns and cities upholding and enforcing the law to the standards which they deliver and the standards that are expected of them.

In recent times, one can only be gripped by the media interviews given by Frank McBrearty Jnr. There are outstanding issues that have not been resolved by the Minister regarding this case. Legal representation in this case is a major issue. The McBrearty family, which was the centrepiece of the Morris tribunal, did not receive the same type and scale of legal representation afforded to the Garda Síochána and the Garda Commissioner, which is uncalled for. It is incumbent upon us to ensure that no more damage is done to the McBrearty family and that the justice they strove to attain is delivered to them. That is the least we owe the family.

The Department and the current team of Ministers must ensure this type of mess and scandal never happens again. If it does recur, there should be safeguards in place to ensure those responsible will be expelled from the force so quickly their feet will not touch the ground.