Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank all the Senators for their input this evening. It was very interesting to listen to the contributions. All of us, being practising public representatives, citizens and people living in our own communities, have a vested interest in ensuring community safety is key and paramount. We need only look at the programme for Government for the next five years, which has been agreed to and published and is available for everybody to read, to see very extensive sections on justice, policing, crime, rehabilitation and prisons. They refer to the whole range of functions right across the Department of justice, home affairs and migration, which is also a huge issue and means a huge undertaking within the Department.

Let me put this matter into context. I have said we are all public representatives. We are all right in advocating for our own communities and seeking more resources and public services for them. That is our job as public representatives. With regard to policing, in particular, about seven or eight years ago the Houses of the Oireachtas were convulsed for a number of years – some Senators may recall it – regarding various very challenging issues within An Garda Síochána. You could call them scandals or issues. There were several of them and many of them were raised on the floors of the Seanad and the Dáil. They took up a lot of the time of the Oireachtas and of the then Government. One of the criticisms at the time was that there was political policing in Ireland and that the Government was too close to An Garda Síochána.One of the outcomes that came out of that period was the establishment of the independent Policing Authority. To the best of my knowledge, that was supported by pretty much everybody across the Houses of the Oireachtas. The independent Policing Authority was set up on a statutory basis and put An Garda Síochána at arm's length from the Government. Prior to that, when people were promoted to the rank of superintendent - I am not sure if this also applied to the rank of inspector - the decision had to go before the Cabinet. The view was that the Government of the day was too close to the Garda Commissioner of the day and that they were not as detached as they should be and as was seen in successful policing models elsewhere.

The point I am making is that we have an independent Policing Authority that is at arm's length from the Government and other public representatives. Of course, we all deal with local members of An Garda Síochána through our JPCs, which are now to be called community safety partnerships and will have public representatives on them, but the independent operation of An Garda Síochána is solely the function of the Garda Commissioner and his team. They have independence in how they apply Garda resources. We give them laws, powers, money and resources, and it is then up to them. They produce an annual policing plan. Each local Garda division also produces an annual policing plan. It all feeds into that. While we all want more members of An Garda Síochána in our own divisions and districts and we all rightly advocate for that, we do not sit over in Government Buildings and tell the Garda Commissioner where to put gardaí. That is his job.

Obviously, I did not hear the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, speak when he was in the Chamber, as I have come to relieve him. As he has stated publicly, though, we agreed when we were appointed to this Department that we wanted to see more Garda visibility in our communities and on our streets up and down the country. We want to see gardaí in every type of community setting, whether urban or rural. The Minister has impressed his desire and view upon the Garda Commissioner. At the end of the day, it is up to the Commissioner to try to do his job to the best of his ability, but it is fair to say that he will take on board the view that was expressed.

This leads on to recruitment. We have 14,100 gardaí. It is stated definitively within the programme for Government that we want to recruit an additional 5,000 over the lifetime of this Government. If we can get to that, it will be a great measure of success. There is a substantial job of work to do to get to that point. We have challenges. There is the challenge of people who decide they want to change careers, which many do. Some people do not look at careers as being life-long now. We have pushed the entry age up to 49 years, so a 49-year-old can now apply to An Garda Síochána. We have also pushed the retirement age up to 62. That could go further again. We are pushing recruitment. As Senators are aware, a recruitment campaign is ongoing. I encourage all public representatives in the Houses to share that on their social media profiles. The closing date is Thursday of this week. People can apply online. It is a fantastic career. I encourage people who are interested to look at it.

Regarding the recruits coming out of the Garda Training College at Templemore, everyone is advocating for more of them to come to each of our respective Garda divisions. I am conscious that some of the Senators who have spoken are rural while others are urban, living on the east coast or in Dublin in particular. It is a fact that the vast majority of the recruits that have been coming out of Templemore from the past number of batches have been coming to the greater Dublin area and the wider east coast, which is where the greater population is. However, this is not to say that other areas have not seen an increase. They have. In my own area of Limerick, there were 554 gardaí in 2015. At the end of 2024, there were 582. The number of vehicles in the Limerick Garda division in 2015 was 92. That number is now 132, which is a significant increase. There have been significant increases in my own division. I do not have the numbers for each of the divisions around the country, but Senators will be aware that the Department of Justice and An Garda Síochána account for some of the largest budget subheads in the State.

I will pick up on some other matters that were mentioned. All of the contributions are being watched in the back offices of the Department of Justice. People will take note of everything that was said, feeding into the work we do.

The programme for Government has a number of sections on the modernisation and improvement of our Courts Service. That is a continuous job of work. I refer particularly to our family law courts. Many Senators mentioned family law issues, delays in that regard and how they impact on families, particularly women. It is right that issues like the inability to enforce court-ordered maintenance payments, which has a severe impact on people, are mentioned in some of the strategies.

The youth justice strategy and youth diversion programmes do important work. It is about intervening with young people, teenagers in particular, who are identified as potentially going down the wrong path in life and working with them to steer them back onto the right path and take them away from criminality. I will visit such a programme in my own constituency on Thursday. There are many more of them around the country and they do fabulous work. There will be a budget of approximately €33 million for youth diversion this year. That is a significant amount of money.

Regarding JPCs, most people in the House would have sat on one as a local authority member, as I did, or even as an Oireachtas Member. These are now being superseded by community safety committees, which will have an expanded role and membership. As Senator Fitzpatrick mentioned, they will rightly have public representatives on them, but there will also be people from the HSE, Tusla and other State agencies, such as the Probation Service. These are people who have front-line experience and a lot to offer. Community groups will also play a major part, and offering them an opportunity be part of those forums is important. Each of the local authorities is conducting an exercise to seek expressions of interest from people to act as the chairperson of those new committees.

I am stuck on names because we are all new here. Senator Scahill mentioned policing by consent. The Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, has rightly mentioned that in many of his early interviews since taking up the role of Minister for Justice. We are really lucky that there is a fantastic working relationship between the vast majority of the people of Ireland and An Garda Síochána. Long may that last. The Senator mentioned something I have heard a number of times, that is, paperwork and administration in the Garda. I hear the Senator when he says that but in the era we are living in, if proper records are not kept, it becomes an issue. I often say that when people are giving out about hospital management and saying that the hospitals are stacked with middle management, pen pushers and paper pushers. If someone goes into an organisation and there is no record of the person or of an event relating to that person, it raises questions about why there is no such record.I know it myself from sitting on the joint policing committee in Limerick, where there would be the data analyst from the Garda division making a presentation to us, as she used to do. Statistics and data are very important in affording and allowing members of An Garda Síochána to develop and devise their policing strategies and policing plans. I know paperwork can be the enemy, but it also can be your friend, and, unfortunately, it is quite necessary.

Much has been said about Garda stations. About ten years ago, there were huge debates in both Houses of the Oireachtas on rural Garda stations because the closure of Garda stations was the Government policy at the time. Many people, including me, did not agree with that. However, much investment is now going into new Garda stations. I can point to my own constituency where, in the town of Newcastle West, the sod was turned recently on the construction of a new, fantastic Garda station. It will be a substantial Garda station to serve the west Limerick community. I note Senator Dee Ryan has raised and campaigned on the much-needed issue of a new Garda station on the east side of Limerick city, with the rapidly expanding population in the Castletroy-Monaleen area. It is badly needed and we will support it in government. The OPW has been tasked with finding, identifying and acquiring a suitable site to do it, and progressing it.

I will mention a few of the other issues. I do not know what to say to my colleague, Senator Rabbitte, about the drug dog for Galway. Perhaps she should have a word with the chief and ask him where that is going. She mentioned quite rightly the number of heroin detections in Galway city. I used to find the JPC was terribly helpful with that, and the new community safety committees will have a huge role in that.

The issue of antisocial behaviour in our urban settings was raised by Senator Mary Fitzpatrick and other speakers. It is a big challenge. We have it in all the big urban areas of Cork, Dublin, Limerick and Galway, where people are begging and carrying on in an antisocial behaviour manner and fashion. It comes back to gardaí being visible on the street and enforcing and rolling out a plan for it. We all speak from the experiences of our own communities. Superintendent Andrew Lacey in Limerick has put a lot of work into that in Limerick city centre. I am told it is bearing results. It is something that needs to be worked on day by day and you need the manpower to do it. That, again, falls back to the Garda recruitment campaign, which is under way to try to encourage people in.

People mentioned an expanded Judiciary. It is within the programme for Government to appoint more judges. We have to appoint more family law judges. We need more judges in the appeal courts to try to speed up the hearing of cases and the processing of cases because, as we all know, justice delayed is justice denied. We need to ensure we have a unit within the courts related to planning law. As we know, there are many issues. That was one of the outworkings of the new planning Bill, which was enacted just before the general election.

Rural crime was mentioned in relation to the IFA. There is a commitment in the programme for Government, as Senators will note, to devise, in conjunction with An Garda Síochána, a national rural safety strategy. That will put another added focus on the issue of rural crime.

Senator Cathal Byrne mentioned unexplained wealth. I think it goes without saying that one of the most successful units within An Garda Síochána is the Criminal Assets Bureau, CAB. It does outstanding work to identify, investigate and recover the proceeds of crime. Every Garda division has a CAB unit - a CAB officer and a CAB office. They do good work and they are quite successful. They should be supported.

Senator Tully mentioned mental health, community supports and addiction issues in the context of prison spaces. There is a commitment within the programme for Government to provide for increased prison spaces, as she knows. Much investment has gone in over recent years to create additional prison spaces. Her points were very well made. It goes back to some of the youth diversion programmes and putting in place the proper front-line services to help people who suffer addiction and who suffer from mental health, like the CAST programme that is being piloted in Limerick that tries to intervene with people and recognise the issues and challenges they have to try to keep them away from the custodial system. At the same time, however, we have be real about it as well. We have a growing population, and with a growing population there will be a greater prevalence of crime. Unfortunately, despite all of the issues just mentioned, the State has to have the capacity to be able to put people behind bars where the crimes so dictate or the courts so decide.