Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

I agree completely with Senator Maurice Hayes that the big issue, also mentioned on Committee Stage by Senator Cummins, is that many members of the existing ranks regard this as some sort of effort to bypass or replicate them or produce what was ineloquently described as "yellow-pack" policing. Nothing could be further from my mind. I am talking about the new Ireland of today, in which the sergeant will not live with his wife in the back room of the station. That world is gone for ever.

Nowadays people commute 30 miles to work. If they commute to police Donnybrook from Ashbourne in County Meath and points west and north, in a sense the Garda Síochána will be in danger of deracination — having its roots removed — so that it floats above the community rather than being of it. Senators may find the idea of Donnybrook being policed by residents of Ashbourne strange, but the same applies to both the wealthiest and the least wealthy communities in Ireland. Is the Garda Síochána to have a presence in the least wealthy communities too? We must ask ourselves that question. Particularly where there is deprivation and exclusion, there should be closer links between the Garda Síochána and its functional area.

I know that all my words in this House are carefully noted by the Garda Representative Association executive and so on. This will enrich the experience of being a policeman in Ireland. It will not deprive any member of trade union leverage or anything else. It will have exactly the opposite effect, making the lives of full-time gardaí more rewarding, so that they have available to them the resource, the roots and the local connections a system of reserves will bring. I really do not believe that it is the threat perceived in some circles to their leverage, status or trade union clout.