Jim Higgins (Fine Gael)

I agree wholeheartedly with Senators Cummins, Ryan and Brian Hayes that it is manifestly wrong that this Bill should have been left until the 11th hour of this session and that it has effectively been guillotined through the Dáil and now through the Seanad in this fashion. When I was spokesperson on justice, equality and law reform in the Dáil, I repeatedly pressed the former Minister, Deputy O'Donoghue, over a four-year period on the urgent need to amend legislation to bring the regulations and operations of the Garda Síochána into the 21st century. Unfortunately we have had to wait for this weighty and detailed volume, which while it has many good ideas contains many proposals about which I have major reservations. Above all else, it is the guillotining of the legislation that appals me.

I agree with Senator Brian Hayes that had it not been for the volcanic and sensational revelations of the second Morris report, published three weeks ago last Wednesday, we would not have the amendments that have come through from the other House. Many of the amendments are good ones despite the fact that it is the wont of this Minister and this regime not to listen when valid, well-intended arguments are put forward on Committee Stage, not in an obstructive but a constructive manner.

Amendment No. 9 deals with section 7, which states, in subsection (1)(a), that one of the functions of the Garda Síochána is to provide policing and security services for the State with the objective of "preserving peace and public order". Unfortunately, it did not do so in Donegal. It created mayhem and public disorder. Another function, set out in subsection (1)(b), is "protecting life and property". It did neither in Donegal.

I welcome the section regarding vindicating human rights for each individual. This ensures a place for the amendments put forward by our colleagues in the other House and Senator Tuffy here. As the Minister said, there was a valid argument, but why Senator Tuffy's argument was not accepted in the first place is beyond me. I am glad it finally dawned on the Minister, by way of persuasion in the Dáil, that there was substance to it. Hence the reason for the deletion of section 7(4).

One of the functions of the Garda Síochána, as set down in section 7(1)(g) of the Bill, is "regulating and controlling road traffic and improving road safety". For how long have we been pressing for a designated traffic corps? I genuinely believe that assigning members of the Garda Síochána to traffic duties, such as speed checks, is a manifest waste of resources. Every day, I see three or four gardaí operating speed cameras from hidden locations. There is nothing wrong with trying to detect speeding — God knows we have enough carnage on the roads. Gardaí who have received two years of training in Templemore are tasked with sitting covertly in culs-de-sac and culverts, on byroads and high roads and behind hedges. It is a manifest waste of public resources for them to be assigned in such a manner. They have to use "hair dryers" to try to detect those who are driving at a speed of over 70 mph, or whatever the current kilometre equivalent is.

One would have imagined that this Bill represented a golden opportunity for the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform to establish a designated traffic corps. I genuinely believe that such a corps could be trained in six months. I give credit to past members of the Garda Síochána who did the bidding of the State — they enforced the law without fear or favour — having received just six months of training in Templemore. They did their job much better than some of those who are currently assigned such responsibilities. It is a terrible waste of Garda resources that members of the force are being given the function of enforcing traffic regulations.

We do not have that many gardaí. When one takes into account wastage, sickness, resignations and retirements from the force, one will realise that the Garda Síochána has a core of approximately 12,000 members. The Minister, Deputy Michael McDowell, has given a commitment to increasing the number of gardaí, but I have outlined the reality of the current position. Just 12,000 gardaí are actually available for duty every day. The Minister has wasted an opportunity in that regard.

I welcome amendments Nos. 13 and 14, which amend the legislation so that it clearly prescribes that any prosecution must be brought with the explicit approval of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

One of this Bill's major omissions is it does not provide for the redesignation of a Garda investigation. An amendment to that effect could have been included with the amendments under discussion. I would like to refer to a specific redesignation, which occurred in the McBrearty case in County Donegal. The Minister has admitted that the members of the McBrearty family, who were totally innocent, were grossly abused during the investigation into a crime in which they had absolutely no involvement — good, bad or indifferent. The designation of the investigation was altered from an investigation of a road traffic accident, in December 1996, to a murder inquiry. The McBrearty family was not informed when the investigation was redesignated in August 2002 as an investigation of a road traffic accident.

I watched the coverage on TV3 and RTE last Friday of the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform's announcement at a press conference of his intention to introduce new regulations for the transport of cash shipments by companies like Brinks Allied and Securicor. I welcome the regulations, which were drawn up in the wake of a spate of robberies, and I commend the Minister and the Garda Commissioner on them. Even though journalists had been told not to ask about anything other than the matter under discussion, near the end of the press conference the Minister was asked out of the blue about the redesignation of the McBrearty case. The Commissioner, who took up the question, said that although the case was redesignated as an inquiry into a road traffic accident in 2002, he was not made aware of that in his then capacity as Deputy Garda Commissioner until 2004. I watched the Minister's tell-tale reaction to the Commissioner's comments. It seemed to me that the Minister was simply agog as he listened——