Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

I thank Members for their kind comments. It is true that as the general election approaches, every appearance in this House, however late in the life of the Dáil, could be the last. It and Senators' capacities to appear here are the people's prerogative to decide on and we must abide by their verdict.

After the Criminal Justice Act 2006, which was long in its gestation, I did not anticipate the need to bring this Bill before the Houses of the Oireachtas. To those who argue that I treat any House like a rubber stamp, I ask them to remember how long that Act was before the Oireachtas and how it was considered in great depth.

By last autumn, there was no doubt that certain elements in society were defying the democratic nature of the State and the rule of law by wilfully dispensing with others' lives as a matter of indifferent convenience, namely, shooting young men and others, which was intolerable. It became apparent that drugs gangs were willing to liquidate people for the slightest reason or none and that the danger to the public was growing.

I recall the clamour for action then, but the same editorial columns are now empty of enthusiasm for action on the subject. I do not know why changing the law was so clamant and obvious then, when all sorts of proposals were made, everyone was to be sent to the Special Criminal Court and every right possible was to be removed in the white heat of anger, but the Bill, when produced, is not urgent, could wait until the autumn of next year and is a pre-election stunt. I do not expect consistency. In fact, I remember the phrase used by the late Brian Lenihan about the tyranny of consistency.

Last September, I made a speech in Limerick on the need to rebalance the law. Last November, we established the rebalancing of the law committee. A rash of horrific murders took place in November and December. A recent case in the High Court related to a rape case. To the people involved, life seemed very cheap and they were willing to use grenades and shoot each other for retaliatory reasons. Today, a person in Dublin was arrested in possession of a Kalashnikov rifle.

We cannot be other than serious about these matters. Yesterday, a young man on the back of a motorcycle was shot dead in Limerick. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the lives of these individuals, public opinion demands that the law deals effectively with the perpetrators. My nightmare scenario, which almost happened recently, is that instead of attending the funerals of one person or another, I will attend the funerals of a number of gardaí because a drug-crazed scion of a drugs gang let fly at a squad car with a machine pistol. If that happened, all the pressure would be on me to explain why I had done nothing when it was so obvious that this was building up. I thank God members of the Garda have not been killed. However, a member was hit by gunfire a number of months ago in Ballyfermot. Members of a drugs gang appear to have let fly at him as he waited outside a house that had previously been attacked.

Having made those comments in defence of acting now rather than later, I do not regard the criminal justice system as something written in stone. It needs constant review, updating and adjustment similar to our tax and social welfare laws. If we want to be constantly in the position of keeping our criminal justice system fit for its purpose, we must be willing to review it. I do not like engaging in gestural reform. Sometimes on the neighbouring island when something happens, a Bill pops up as if out of a toaster and is enacted to deal with the issue. Although we enact a significant amount of legislation in this area, compared with England and Wales, in particular, we are quite fastidious in this regard. The British Government has introduced much more amending legislation than us. Accusations that we are serial legislators are slightly wide of the mark.

I thank my officials for working on the legislation. It was adumbrated in a criminal justice package last December, worked on over Christmas and the new year before its scheme was published in February. The Bill was then the subject of a major drafting process, which brought us into March when it was introduced and debated in the other House over six weeks followed by a much shorter debate in this House. I would have liked to introduce the Bill in this House. I cannot recall why that was not done but there was probably a good reason for it. I have found this House to be unique in its value as a reviewer, innovator and amender of legislative proposals that come before it. I pay tribute to every Member for the courteous, constructive and sometimes passionate way in which my legislative proposals have been considered over recent years. I thank, in particular, my officials for all their work. I have been a hard task master regarding much of the material produced by my Department and they know the pace of legislation has been sustained and demanding.

However, as parliamentarians, we should not be in any way reticent or ashamed about keeping our criminal justice system up to date. I have resourced and reformed the Garda Síochána to some extent and the process of reform is gathering pace. The Garda Ombudsman Commission will start its work soon and the inspectorate is up and running. The professional audit unit is in place and the accountability mechanisms are beginning to click into place while the executive board will be put in place quickly. All those measures are part of changing the Garda Síochána from a largely unreformed force to one which is responsive. While it would be difficult enough to reform a police force in the period of time in which we have done it in normal times, it has been done while under constant pressure to keep the law administered and enforced against road traffic deaths, gangland crime and the subversive threats, and deal with immigration issues, etc. To reform the Garda Síochána at the same time as discharging its functions has been a major challenge. It is not possible to abolish it or test a particular theory to destruction. We must do the best we can.

I express thanks to the Morris tribunal for all the input it has made into the process of reform, regardless of how unfortunate the reasons it had to make it. I pay tribute to Senator Maurice Hayes and his group — and to the Senator on other occasions — for the constant contribution to the process of reform of the Garda Síochána.

The men and women of the Garda Síochána are now entering a force which is radically different from the one that existed in our childhoods. Yesterday at Templemore I attended one of the quarterly parades for the passing out of 254 members. The backgrounds of the medal holders were examined. Interestingly a number of them have honours degrees. When I commented on this fact to Assistant Commissioner Clancy, who was on the reviewing stand with me, she said that not only are medal holders above average and wonderful people, but also a number of them hold PhDs. This indicates the kinds of people joining the force are people with considerable investment in their own education and training. I do not claim that having a PhD necessarily makes a person a better garda when operating in Temple Bar at night. However, the talent flooding into the Garda Síochána is huge. The real challenge for us is to use the talent and not to frustrate it and allow it to wither on the vine.

I pay tribute not only to the management of the Garda Síochána, but in particular to the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioners. Although they are proud of their institution, they have been willing to embrace the process of change. Change is coming about in law enforcement here. Ultimately, in a few years, we will see that change has been dramatically for the better.

I thank the Members of this House on behalf of myself and my officials for their courtesy and their kind remarks. I wish them all well in whatever electoral endeavours in which they may be involved in the relatively near future.