Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

I am grateful to the Senators for their contributions on this issue. Frankly, I have sympathy with all the views expressed because root and branch change is needed in the way in which the Garda Síochána is run. A Bill does not bring about root and branch change by itself. That process must follow in the wake of the Bill and will require a considerable degree of commitment from the Garda Síochána.

An important point is that in the wake of the Morris tribunal report I do not want the members of the Garda Síochána to lapse into passivism or passivity in regard to all these issues, or to ask: "What are they going to do to us next? Who will be appointed from the outside to do this, that and the other to us?" I want to encourage them to face up to the challenge that this new situation creates. For example, I could have located the professional standards unit in my Department but, in that event, it would be another body that would visit the Garda Síochána and act on its members from the outside.

It is important gardaí take ownership, at least in part, of the process of change. They have very serious issues to deal with. However, I would not like gardaí in the Phoenix Park to feel they are in some fortress and that agencies keep descending on them, telling them this and that new idea from the outside. If the Garda Síochána is to undergo change — I am very confident Garda Commissioner Conroy shares my view on this — I want its members to play a constructive part in that change, not to see it resentfully as the backwash of Donegal or to believe that all these things happen to them rather than being done by them.

I want to strike a balance, with an independent inspectorate looking in from outside and with the internal audit unit now being appointed by the Minister. I do not want every single mechanism in the new package to be external to the force. It must have responsibility in some of these areas.

To turn to Senator Tuffy's point on an external review of the Garda Síochána, I share the view that it will be necessary to have a broad review of where policing in Ireland is going. However, I could not accept the Labour Party Private Members' motion in the Dáil which effectively stated I should put everything on hold for 18 months before coming back to the Bill. The need for reform in the Garda Síochána is immediate, as is the need for an ombudsman service.

If there is an incident the day after tomorrow in which somebody is injured or killed by gardaí, do we want an ombudsman service as an automatic response to investigate that incident in the coming weeks or whenever we get the service up and running, or will we postpone it for 18 months and have worse events happen in the meantime? From a frankly political perspective, how would my position be sustainable if I suggested another 18 months were to elapse because I wanted to think in broad terms about this issue yet again, some two years after the heads of the Bill were published for consultation? Would the public accept it was reasonable to suggest the process of reform was to be extended to three and a half or four years? I do not think so. It would not be sustainable.

A point that should go on the record of the House is that I expect the next modules of the Morris tribunal will produce even worse news. What am I to do about that? Should I sit and wait passively for worse news to arrive or set about the process of reform now? I reiterate that if something is missing from this package, we will discover it. These measures are not the Ten Commandments; they are not there for all time. However, they are intended to get the process running, at least on all of the areas of reform I can identify as necessary. If some serious issue which requires change is missed by the Bill, I would be happy to make further changes to the package. There is no reason to postpone the process of change.

Senator Maurice Hayes made a good point in his contribution to the debate and in a letter he sent to me. He stated that the wind is now in the sails of reform and we should not let it evaporate.