Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 10, line 18, after "Inspector" to insert "or Inspectors".

I welcome the Minister of State to the House with this important Bill. The Garda superintendents are somewhat concerned that when authorised as a result of this Bill to delegate responsibilities to inspectors, the Bill deals with an "Inspector" and thereby limits a superintendent to delegating to just one of his subordinate inspectors whereas it may arise that he or she wants to delegate a particular issue to a number of inspectors. They have asked me to submit this amendment, which seeks to change the word "Inspector" to "Inspectors", in order to give them the freedom they will require to be able to use more than one inspector. I ask the Minister of State to take that on board and agree to it.

Another issue has been raised by the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors, AGSI. While no amendment on this point has been proposed by the AGSI - they cannot really have an amendment for it - they are seeking to place us on notice that if we are to ask inspectors to undertake additional duties, we will probably find ourselves in a situation where negotiations will have to take place with the AGSI in the fullness of time on how inspectors will be compensated for taking on new roles.Inspectors are being moved from a direct supervisory role if they are delegated to undertake some of the work that once done by superintendents. I have every faith in AGSI to deal with the Department on that and to agree on a method. However, I want to flag its interest now. The argument put forward by the superintendents is very reasonable. It would be a minor amendment to the Bill that would give them the flexibility they will need.