Barry Ward (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I did not get a chance to address section 51 on Second Stage but it is a positive measure. I acknowledge the work done by my colleague, Senator Gallagher, in bringing forward Private Members' legislation, although it is not specifically about gardaí alone. This is an important step.

With regard to the existing section 19 offence, I welcome the fact that the penalty is being increased, just as it has been increased for assault. The reality is that, when a judge goes to sentence, per the guidelines or directions set down by the Court of Appeal in various sentencing cases, their job is now to look at the range of sentences available. That runs from the lowest sentence available to the maximum. That creates the range for an offence. The court will then assess where on that range the offence lies, that is, whether it is a low-level, high-level or mid-level offence. That dictates the starting point or headline for any sentence before mitigation, aggravation and so on is applied by the court. I have great faith in our judges' ability to distribute sentences in a way that is proportionate and which reflects the level of the crime. They are experts at doing that and serve us tremendously well in that regard. The job of these Houses is to provide them with guidance as to where we think the range is.

With regard to section 3 of the Non-Fatal Offences against the Person Act 1997, which relates to assault causing harm, we are changing the range from zero to five years to zero to ten years. That is appropriate. We are putting down a marker that this kind of offending behaviour is not acceptable. We are saying that we are putting a particular focus on it because the effects of assaults on individual citizens are very great. They can cause people not to go out again or not to go into town at night. Whatever it might be, it has a dramatic effect. The same is also true of gardaí. The vast majority of individual gardaí doing their business do so excellently and in service of the State. The Minister made reference to the fact that we have a police force that polices by consent. It does so because it deserves and needs the respect of the community to do that job. We saw the importance of that over the last few years. It is something we do not give enough credit to ourselves for. That, at the time of the foundation of this State, in the midst of a Civil War and out of an armed insurrection that brought about the independence of this State, the people who set up An Garda Síochána, particularly Kevin O'Higgins, Michael Staines and so on, set up an unarmed police force was an extraordinary achievement and they did so at a time when this country probably had more guns in houses, under beds and so on than ever before. That legacy endures 100 years later.

We need to protect the people who go out on the streets without arms and guns to protect all of us, to acknowledge the work they do and to set down a marker to tell people that, if they are going to interfere with the job those people are doing and jeopardise their ability to do that job without carrying a gun or another serious weapon, there will be serious consequences. There are still people in this country who suggest we should have an armed police force. I absolutely reject that. Obviously, we do have gardaí who carry firearms in limited circumstances but the real achievement of An Garda Síochána is that every day its members walk through areas in this country and in this city that are dangerous and they do so because they have an authority that they would not have if they were armed. I really believe that.

We need to recognise that An Garda Síochána does a job that is enormously meritorious, laudable and important because the other side of that coin is what we see happening in America. Armed police forces just escalate situations. If the police officer has a gun, you have to have a gun. All of a sudden, you have a situation where everyone is armed. We see how policing in America has disintegrated, particularly in recent years. There are obviously massive problems with institutional racism in American policing that I hope we do not have here. No police force is perfect but we get a type of service here from An Garda Síochána that we do not see in any other modern developed country. It is really important to acknowledge that gardaí do a job in circumstances that are difficult and, in some cases, dangerous and that, in the vast majority of cases, they do so without weapons. That is as it should be. If we are asking them to do that, we must match them with measures like this to show that we are behind them, that we will protect them and that we will not accept those who seek to interfere or to undermine their job. As I have said, the end of that line is what we see in America, where citizens are at risk from and in fear of their police force. I hope that is not the case here and I hope that will continue for another 100 years and longer.

I very much welcome this amendment. It is appropriate, reasonable and measured. It is also an important recognition of the job gardaí do and the support the State is going to provide for them in recognising assaults against them.