Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I move:

That Seanad Éireann–- recognises the role of joint policing committees in facilitating consultation, cooperation and synergy on policing and crime issues between An Garda Síochána, local authorities and elected local representatives;
- recognises the work of joint policing committees in facilitating the participation of the community and voluntary sectors in policing matters;
- recognises the contribution of joint policing committees to the work of An Garda Síochána in the area of community policing;
- calls on the Minister for Justice and Equality to consider the enhancement of the role of the joint policing committees to include a collaborative approach on the part of all the joint policing committee members to realise their considerable potential to benefit local communities;
- calls on the Minister for Justice and Equality to outline the implications for joint policing committees in light of the local government reforms and the establishment of the planned policing authority; and
- calls on the Minister for Justice and Equality to consider ways to support and improve the operation of joint policing committees and how they might add value to the work of local authorities, the gardaí and community organisations to include input from stakeholders who are not joint policing committee members.

In the first instance, I thank the Minister for coming in to deal with this matter herself. In terms of Private Members' motions, since I took over as the Fine Gael justice spokesperson in the Seanad over a year ago, it is her third Private Members' motion. The first one was on restorative justice, the second was on community courts and this one is on joint policing committees. I have always tried to be constructive with our Private Members' time, particularly our Private Members' motions. As the Minister will be aware, thankfully, the House unanimously supported the motions on restorative justice and community courts. Sometimes commentators wonder whether the work of the Seanad gets noticed but the fact that it has been announced by the Minister that there will be a community court piloted in Dublin in the near future is testament to the fact that even a Government under pressure with resources is willing to look at alternative and innovative new ideas.
In terms of the joint policing committees, there has been a fundamental change in local government following the local elections in May last which resulted in dramatically reduced councils, the amalgamation of a number of city and county councils and the abolition of town councils. That fundamental change certainly will impact on the newly formatted joint policing committees. Instead of having 114 joint policing committees, there will be 31.
I acknowledge the work done Fianna Fáil in Government for passing the Garda Síochána Act 2005, which introduced joint policing committees.

They were piloted until 2008 and then they were rolled out on a national basis. Up until now the system of joint policing committees has been piloted. The real work of policing committees will probably start with those formed as a result of the local elections last May. There is no doubt that some of the local joint policing committees were very successful. Others were not so successful, but the important thing is that many lessons and better ways of doing business have been learned from the experience of the joint policing committees since 2008.
I am happy to acknowledge the role of Fianna Fáil when it was in government in establishing the joint policing committees. The challenge for us is to ensure that they work better and that whatever lessons were to be learned have been learned. To that end, the Government must be commended for initiating a review in 2012, which saw up to 60 submissions on how we can do our business better. That review has now been incorporated into the new guidelines on the new joint policing committees, which were issued by the Department to local authorities.
One of the big lessons that we can learn - and that hopefully will be learned - about making joint policing committees more successful, is to ensure that there is effective community involvement. Until now community involvement was haphazard, to say the least. The first port of call in examining the pulse of a community is the councillors and then to a lesser extent, though still important, Members of the Oireachtas. Policing committees are currently driven by the elected councillors that serve on them but in order to give an overall flavour of what is happening on the ground, to ensure that the policing plans - the one-year and six-year plans, which are regarded in the new guidelines as being critical - are effective, the community involvement must improve. I welcome the Minister's proposal that local policing committees in each county be given leverage to identify appropriate people within community groups to participate. What may be appropriate in Cork may not work in Clare, and what is appropriate in both Cork and Clare may not work in Galway, so this scope for joint policing committees to identify appropriate local community involvement on the committees must be welcomed.
We must learn the lessons from all the policing committees and that must be channelled into one overall report. There is a statutory obligation on policing committees to publish a report, which is made available to the Minister, but there is much to be said for putting all the reports together into one overarching report, which could be examined by the justice committee on an annual basis, because there is no point in having policing committees unless they feed into national policy as well as providing important local involvement. The joint policing committees are, in effect, giving a statutory format and mechanism to what has existed in our communities on an ad hocbasis for decades. There has been over many years a great relationship between the community and An Garda Síochána and, indeed, between public representatives and An Garda Síochána. Unfortunately, with the modernisation of society and, to a large extent, the urbanisation of society, many gardaí who would have lived and worked in certain divisions now do not live in the division and just come to work there. This may be a good thing in many ways - their free time is their free time. The understanding of the local garda, who lived and worked in the community - and may even lived in the Garda station - has diminished. Once that local knowledge and sense of community involvement and feedback - and the sense communities had that they were listened to - as a result of that old-style, ad hocstructure dissolved to a large extent, we had to look at doing something on a more formalised basis. Given the many, welcome changes taking place within An Garda Síochána, including the new policing authority and the appointment of a new Commissioner early next year, it is imperative that we ensure that the joint policing committees play a fundamental role in the new policing that we will experience over the coming years.
On the amendments to the motion, the amendment tabled by Fianna Fáil merely outlines cutbacks and what has been done and so on. I mean no disrespect to the people who have tabled it, but I do not feel it is relevant to this particular motion. This motion is specifically about joint policing committees. It does not deal with Garda resources, reductions in the number of vehicles, closing of Garda stations, and so on. On those points, I welcome what the Minister announced in the budget yesterday. We will certainly see a firming-up of the Garda fleet and new recruits in Templemore over the coming months. Perhaps the budget - or so I would hope - has addressed many of the concerns that were expressed in this amendment, so Fianna Fáil may consider not pressing it.
The amendment tabled by Sinn Féin presents food for thought. The new guidelines will probably address many of Sinn Féin's concerns - the public meetings it calls for joint policing committees to carry out, and so on. Many joint policing committees are already holding that type of meeting. Either way, I welcome the debate. I am glad people tabled amendments because it means that they are exercised by the motion.
The future of the joint policing committees is very bright and their role is very important. It is essential that we ensure that the next five years of the joint policing committees are even more successful than the last five or six years. It is new to Ireland, it is a relatively new initiative, but now is the time to bed it down and to ensure it really works on behalf of the people of Ireland - to ensure that there is proper, effective consultation, communication, understanding between public representatives, community groups and, indeed, An Garda Síochána.
I commend the motion to the House.