Paul Bradford (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy McHugh to the House. I want to make some brief observations on the legislation, to which I give a general welcome. I concede I do not have the expertise in responding to the legislation that the party spokespersons have. They are obviously members of the Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality and went through the matter in the pre-legislative stage in great detail. I am looking at it more from a layman's perspective.

When we are attempting to fix a problem, we should not forget as a society and country that our people have been generally very well served by the Garda Síochána and the forces of law and order over many decades, and their record speaks for itself. There have been difficulties of course and the matters in spring 2014 come to mind and much of the new legislation probably stems from that. We must acknowledge that the record of the Garda Síochána since its inception has been very positive.

When we discuss accountability and transferring powers to new authorities and structures, the initial response is that it is obviously very positive and something we should welcome. We also must acknowledge from a political perspective that the elected Members of the Dáil vote for Ministers to head each Department, including the Department of Justice and Equality, and they work with Ministers of State on the whole. It was a strong tradition in this country that a Minister was accountable for every decision made within his or her Department and within all the agencies under the aegis of that Department. That was the tradition of politics and public administration.

Across virtually every Department there is such decentralisation of decision-making and such a transfer of power and accountability that while it may seem positive and a sharing of responsibility, accountability is becoming ever more difficult to define. We have all contacted Ministers across all Departments making representations and raising queries on behalf of the public only to be informed that the Minister has no responsibility and that the matter is the responsibility of a particular agency. When I first arrived in this House many moons ago, if I had a question for the Department of Health, the Minister would respond to virtually every question be that in the Dáil or Seanad.