When I was speaking on the last day that we had the Estimate for the Office of the Minister for Justice before us, I was stressing the need for some change in the existing system, to see, if at all possible, by introducing a new system of policing our country, whether we may not be able to find means by which we can police it at less cost. I suggested that some system could be evolved, by combining mobility, radio communication, telephonic communication and a system of central reserves, local and at headquarters. I feel there is an opportune time approaching for the Minister to take his courage in his hands and get a committee together to investigate this problem. The cost of policing the country is not only excessive, but it has reached saturation point.
On this question of a change of system, I think that we should couple with any contemplated change some scheme of housing for the Gárda. As most Deputies are aware, housing accommodation as such does not exist for the Gárda in many rural areas and particularly in most of our cities and towns. Such of the older barracks as provide accommodation provide it more or less on the garrison principle, a system from which I am averse, and if a housing scheme is to be embarked upon at some future date, it should be one which not only will make the lives of the Gárda more happy and comfortable but will also provide a better system of acquiring local knowledge for the police. In the first place, the Gárda barracks should become an office in the modern sense rather than a bridewell, a barracks or garrison, or place which people fear to enter. In the minds of our people in the past, the local police station was associated with dark and evil things. We should, if you like, glamorise our police stations to the extent that people will have no hesitation in going into them with their troubles. At the same time, I do not want to provide a paradise for the wrongdoer.
It would be better if houses for the Gárda were staggered in a locality throughout a sub-district rather than built together in one block. I would not suggest that we should have, as it were, a police quarter in any town or village. It would be better from the private point of view of the Gárda and the members of their families and from the public point of view that, if a housing scheme for the Gárda can be linked up with housing schemes generally, the houses should be scattered throughout the locality; in other words, that the Guards should have the right to settle down as members of the community amongst the community and be regarded as citizens of that community there, not to spy on their fellow-men, but rather to assist them in their troubles.
The scheme would, of course, be a costly one, but we hear of £100,000,000 about to be spent over the next ten years or so for housing, and opportunity should be taken to link up whatever schemes the Minister may have in contemplation for the Gárda with the housing schemes proper. The rent allowance which the Gárda of any rank is paid is inadequate to provide him with a suitable house. In certain areas, no houses at all are available. In many cities and towns, no houses are available, and even the increased rent allowance which the Minister was good enough to procure for them is inadequate to provide them with any decent sort of living accommodation. There are towns and cities in which a Guard at present would not get more than one or two rooms for the rent allowance approved by the State. It is because of the inadequacy of the rent allowance that I press for serious considerátion of the housing problem of the Gárda and for coupling it with any change of system which the Minister may see fit to introduce.
A good deal of praise can be given to the Gárda for the work they are doing, but there is a good deal of criticism of the force abroad at present. Deputy Dillon mentioned some points, and I do not wish to stress them, but there are definitely rumours of things being wrong in certain areas. Whether these rumours are well-informed or not, I am not going to say, but there is a general looseness in certain areas. There is a certain evidence of indiscipline and a certain amount of evidence that unsavoury practices are creeping in. In voicing these matters, I feel that I am giving effect to the wishes, desires and outlook of every decent member of the force who wants to see these things ended once and for all.
There are, as Deputy Dillon pointed out, black sheep in every flock and a certain number of black sheep at the moment require looking after. I feel, however, that if these black sheep exist, it is because of the war situation, because, owing to the war situation, the inspection system has, to a large extent, broken down. To my knowledge, there have been few inspections by headquarters officers and the inspections by local officers have been reduced to a minimum. The effect of there being no inspections is that the Gárdaí in rural areas are inclined to take things easily, and, even though it may cost more to provide petrol and cars to enable officers to get about, the old system of quarterly and monthly inspections by divisional and district officers should be restored.
Headquarters inspection should also take place at least once a year. I go further and suggest that, while formal inspections have their effect in getting the personnel to study police duties, to clean up their stations and to make themselves, presentable for inspection, an odd surprise inspection by headquarters has a very good effect. Several Deputies since I came to the House have mentioned matters to me which put me thinking on these lines. I have no desire to criticise the Gárda personnel, but I feel that there is not enough supervision from the top, not enough supervision by the local officers and that the time is ripe for a drastic change in the matter of inspection.
I mentioned on the previous day that the Gárdaí are top-weighted with extraneous duties and I want to reiterate that statement. They are being loaded with all sorts of miscellaneous administrative duties by every Government Department. In relation to practically every Act that passes through the Oireachtas which means inquiry outdoors, the Departments concerned invariably suggest that the Gárda Síochána should undertake the particular duties. I cannot emphasise too strongly on the Minister that he should resist any further encroachment on the time of the Gárda for purely administrative work and should not only resist such further encroachment but should endeavour to rid the Gárda of such duties as can properly be shed and performed by other outdoor civil servants.
The Gárda, by virtue of the present trend of legislation and the present policy, is being converted from a police force proper to a mere outdoor Civil Service machine. It is not so much that they have inquiries and outdoor calls to make in relation to these duties, but every one of these inquiries necessitates a report to some Department. The report goes through the usual channels: the sergeant, the superintendent, perhaps the divisional officer, up to headquarters and then on to the Government Department concerned—a system of circumlocution which succeeds in creating nothing very often but a deadweight of paper. The Guards are loaded down with reports and with a deadweight of paper, a good deal of which could be cut out if there were some attempt made to rectify the present system. The Minister, I am sure, is aware of all these problems and I want to emphasise that, in my experience, they have a detrimental effect on the performance of police duties. The police force exists primarily for the prevention and detection of crime and not for assisting the administration of routine matters.
Deputy Dillon had a good deal to say on the question of promotion, particularly in relation to the prison service. I do not want to go into the matter in great detail, but Deputy Dillon seemed to favour a cadet system, and, at the same time, felt that advocacy of a cadet system might be regarded as introducing a caste of officers into the Gárda Síochána, or any other service, for that matter. There is this to be said for a cadet system as for any other system, that it is not a question of the system, but largely a question of the fitness of the particular individual for promotion; in other words, his fitness for command. The test of fitness to command should not be whether he was a socialite, whether he came from a certain respectable family of a higher social status than, say, the ordinary individual, or that he was a university man and was better educated than a man who had served in the ranks. You may get an individual who has not had the opportunity of a university or secondary education who is quite the ideal man for the job. On the other hand, you may get a university man, a man who is probably highly educated, who would not suit at all, and who has no fitness to command. I suggest, therefore, that if any change is contemplated it should be a mixture—not the social status of the individual for promotion —of educational qualifications, combined with a capacity to command. I believe that could be brought about by combining, more so than is being done to-day, a system of competitive examinations with service qualifications.
In the Dublin Metropolitan Division, particularly, you have a system whereby a man is promoted largely by reason of his seniority—seniores priores. That very often means that the individual next on the seniority list may have been divorced from the proper performance of police duties for very long periods. He comes out of his set, as it were, and he gets promotion despite the fact that he has not been performing police duties for many years. I think that type of thing should cease. If there is a case for promoting a man of that type, then he should be brought from the particular post that he is in—clerical or otherwise—and be placed on outdoor duty for 12 months or two years before he goes on to promotion. Seniority may count in certain cases, but there is the fact, in the area mentioned, that men may reach the higher ranks of inspector or superintendent when they are really too old. They are then marking time towards pension and are not concerned so much with the important matters around them. You can get away from that system by enabling young men to get promotion early in life, certainly at not less than 35 or 40 years of age, to the higher ranks. Otherwise, you will have a dead weight of time servers, so to say, at the top who will squelch all initiative and energy in the ranks beneath them.
Deputy Dillon referred to a recent case in Monaghan about which I would like to give my view. This was a case in which two district justices disagreed. Deputy Dillon seemed to convery the impression that in a case of that kind there should be a fresh inquiry, a disciplinary inquiry, held by the commissioner. I do not agree with that principle. If a Guard is charged before the courts and is acquitted by the courts, it would be contrary to all legal principles to put him in jeopardy a second time by having a disciplinary investigation. If there is any question of a disciplinary investigation, a decision should be taken in the first instance to have it, and end the matter there. If you decide to take a particular individual to the court and charge him with a specific offence and the court acquits him, that also should end the matter. I think it would be contrary to the Constitution to put a man in jeopardy twice. If you bring a man in a disciplined force like the Gárda Síochána before a disciplinary inquiry, the penalty there may be far heavier than that which would be inflicted before an ordinary court. I would like to have myself recorded as being in entire disagreement with the principle put forward by Deputy Dillon.
There was a good deal said the last day about complaints. I do not want to go over that ground again, but I do seriously suggest to Deputies, and to the Minister, that when people come forward with complaints and allegations the best and wisest counsel to give them would be to remind them that they have legal rights and should go to a solicitor and assert their legal rights. If members of the public complain that they have been wronged by the action of the Gárdí, and that the Gárdaí have abused their powers, I do not see why Deputies should be twisted into a machine for the ventilation of these allegations. The proper course for such people to take is to seek legal redress, and if they have a case they will get their legal redress. The alternative might be to advise them to report their case to the Minister or the commissioner. If they do so, I have no doubt that such allegations as are made will receive impartial and fair investigation.
Suggestions were thrown out on the last day that Deputies should have the right, more or less, to investigate these complaints and pass them along to the Minister. I think if you were to allow a system of that kind to grow up you would upset the entire administration of the Gárda Síochána. I am satisfied that it has now reached the stage where you have impersonal and impartial administration and where personal considerations—private opinions and that kind of thing— have no influence whatever. I think it is only right, when the machine is working on that purely impersonal basis, that it should be allowed to continue and should not be interfered with, particularly by Deputies. My advice to people who have grievances is that they should ventilate them in the proper manner, and that is in the courts of the land, or by way of complaint to the Minister. Everyone, I suppose, has the right to make representation to the Minister to ensure that there is the pure administration of justice and the impartial enforcement of the law. It is the right of every citizen to bring anything affecting him to the Minister's notice. It is the privilege of Deputies to bring these matters to his notice, but what I have in mind are cases of personal spite and spleen when the law happens to hit a particular individual on the knuckles. That sort of thing should not be done, and the machine should be allowed to work as the Civil Service machine works.
In June last I raised with the Minister the question of the Land Registry fees. I again direct his attention to the matter. I agree entirely with the remarks of Deputy O'Connor on this subject. The fees at present being charged are considerably more than the 100 per cent. increase represented by the Minister. In some cases the increase runs up to 300 per cent., 400 per cent., 500 per cent. and even 600 per cent. I want again to impress on the Minister that it was never the intention that the Land Registry should be a means for collecting revenue, or that it should be a self-sufficient unit of administration. It was never intended that the registry fees would pay for the machinery of registration. The whole principle underlying the setting up of the Land Registry was to provide a ready, accessible and cheap means of registering title. In fact, the fees were made so low as to induce people to come forward to have title registered. Now we are getting to the opposite position. The Minister says that the fees have been increased largely for the purpose of balancing up the cost of running the service and that sort of thing. This is a considerable hardship, as the Minister must be aware, on solicitors. In nine cases out of ten, it is the solicitor who has to put up the money to pay these fees and very often he has to wait 12 months, two years, or even longer before he gets his money back. To compare the fees under the old scale with the new scale, in respect of a purchase price of £1,000, the old scale fee was £3; the new scale fee is £5 6s. 0d. In respect of a purchase price of £3,500, the old scale fee was £6 5s. 0d.; the new scale fee is £13 1s. For a voluntary transfer, say, from father to son, the old scale fee was £1 10s. 0d.; the new scale fee is £5 6s. 0d. For a marriage settlement, the old scale fee was £3; the new scale fee is £5 6s. For ordinary transmission to devisee under a will or next-of-kin on intestacy, the old scale fee was £1 10s.; the new scale fee is £5 6s.
I regard these as very excessive charges, which are a burden upon the solicitors, who have to put up the money in the first instance, and a crippling burden upon the farming community. I would stress again that the registry was never intended to be anything but a cheap and ready means of registering title and was never intended to pay for itself. The present increases are contrary to the whole principle upon which the registry was originally set up. If there is no other way out, I would seriously suggest to the Minister to consider Deputy O'Connor's suggestion, that is, to amalgamate the Registry of Deeds and the Land Registry and see whether or not a cheaper service can be evolved. Deputy O'Connor has quoted the figures and there is no comparison between the fees under the Registry of Deeds and those under the Land Registry.
A good deal has been said about the courts and the administration of justice. I do not want to go over the ground covered by Deputy Costello and Deputy Cosgrave, but there are a few points to which I should like to direct the Minister's attention. One is the question of vesting the High Court on circuit with full criminal and civil jurisdiction, subject to the right of any party to seek a change of venue. At the present time people from the most remote parts of Ireland have to come to the High Court in Dublin and in serious criminal cases this involves considerable expenditure of public money. A good deal of that expenditure could be avoided if the High Court on circuit had jurisdiction and if, in addition, there were a winter assize, such as there was in the old days. I believe the jury system in certain areas might require a certain amount of revision if we were to attempt anything like that, but in the long run it would be a fairer and cheaper means of justice for the people than to drag them from Dingle or Donegal to Dublin. At present the High Court on circuit is badly arranged. As a rule, it sits in March and July. These months are too near each other, and, if at all possible, I would seriously suggest some alteration in the arrangement to provide a longer interval between the two sittings.
Litigants in some cases in Circuit Courts are at a considerable disadvantage in not being able to have a jury for certain civil actions. That is a matter that might be considered, particularly in respect of borough areas and the larger towns; such as Galway, Kilkenny, Clonmel, Wexford, Sligo. I should prefer to see the old jury system in operation in these larger towns. I am afraid that the principle underlying the present system of having a jury of seven is to ensure convictions, and it would be fairer to the accused if the old system of having 12 jurors were in operation, particularly in the boroughs and the larger towns.
The matter of the ground rent agitation in Carndonagh has been already discussed in the House and I do not want to refer to it in any great detail, but I should like to know from the Minister under what authority the Gárda officers and members acted in the case of the recent seizures in Carndonagh. We had the extraordinary spectacle there of Pressmen's cameras being seized by Gárda officers. Not only were their cameras seized, but the negatives were taken and, as I am informed, destroyed. The Press was not allowed to publish pictures of the seizures. I know that the Gárda have powers, under Emergency Powers Order, to seize certain photographs of ports, military barracks, military areas, and that kind of thing. I doubt if they have power to seize cameras, as was done in the case of the evictions at Carndonagh, and I should like to know whether the members concerned acted on their own authority or on instructions from headquarters. This matter has caused considerable feeling in the area concerned and has caused considerable apprehension throughout the country, particularly where branches of the United Irish Leaseholders' Organisation are functioning. I wish to stress the importance of Carndonagh in this matter. It took a Carrickshock in my constituency to end the tithe war and we are beginning to find some rumblings of serious trouble brewing which may come to a head if the matter of the relationship of landlord and tenant is not tackled in a practical fashion.
