Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the legislation and it is timely that it should be brought into operation. As a barrister, as a Minister and as Attorney General, it struck me that the previous legislation was well past its sell-by date and had many defects in it. It is good to have one simple method whereby members of An Garda Síochána who are entitled to compensation have a clear path to compensation which is not strewn with obstacles or unnecessary expense.

Second, it seems to me the legislation is designed to, and probably will, achieve greater fairness as between members of the Garda. It was my experience, and I make no criticism of anybody in this, that some members of An Garda Síochána got more for their injuries than others simply because of the attitude or disposition of the judge before whom the case came to be decided in the High Court. Some judges were effusive in their support for An Garda Síochána and tended to express that in the level of awards they made, whereas other judges were pulling back a little to try to be objective and to look at it in simple terms, comparable to other members of the public who suffered similar-type injuries. From that point of view, it is a good idea that the scheme of this Bill will, in effect, ensure there is a degree of standardisation of approach by reason of the PIAB aspect of the matter and also by reference to the newly installed personal injuries guidelines.

I would make the point that some cognisance has to be taken of the fact that a broken leg is one thing, but a broken leg maliciously caused to a person by the driving of a car at a member of An Garda Síochána can have a very different psychological effect on the member. I hope the legislation, when it is through these Houses, makes it very clear that the psychological trauma associated with many injuries is fully maintained, and it is not just simply a matter of a broken leg due to falling down a stairs or in a public house equating to somebody who has a car driven at him or her and has sustained a broken leg in those circumstances.

There is one other thing I want to mention. I notice that the Bill proposes to extend its coverage to Criminal Assets Bureau members, who, I understand, are not members of An Garda Síochána but operate arising out of the same functions that they carry out under the criminal assets legislation. I support that, of course, but the one thing I would query is the complete exclusion of civilian staff of An Garda Síochána from the remit of the Bill. It seems to me that, going forward, we will have a situation where many technical functions associated with criminal investigations now carried out by members of An Garda Síochána will also be carried out by civilian employees or staff members of An Garda Síochána. I notice they are excluded from the term “member” for the purposes of the legislation. It occurs to me that it may be they will find themselves on the wrong end of criminal violence and threats made against them in the future, for example, scenes of crime investigators or people who are handling the administrative side of An Garda Síochána who could come under intimidation from organised crime and the like. I just raise the issue as to whether it is entirely wise to exclude them from a scheme of compensation, given they may be in the firing line, even though they are not technically members of An Garda Síochána. I ask the Minister of State to consider that point. I can see there are probably complexities going either way in this regard.It seems to me that if there is malice directed towards, and injury inflicted on, a civilian employee of An Garda Síochána by reason of his or her occupation as such, a major distinction should not be drawn between that employee and members of the force, as properly described.

The final point I want to make is that I very much welcome that members of the Garda Reserve are included in the provisions of this legislation. We must get the reserve up and running again. It has been allowed to fall into a state of semi-redundancy and it needs to be revitalised.