asked the Minister for Justice if reports to the effect that members of the Ban-Ghardaí were instructed to represent themselves as being prostitutes in a certain area of Dublin city are true; if so, if he will state who was responsible for issuing such instructions, and if he will give an assurance that no such conduct by members of that force will be permitted in future; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Duties of Ban-Ghardaí.
64.
The statements in question are totally false and I regret that they should have been published without any evidence to sustain them.
The facts are as follows: Numerous complaints have been made to the Garda Síochána by respectable women living or working in certain areas that when going about their lawful business in the evenings they are frequently and persistently accosted by men, from cars and otherwise. The Garda Síochána have been aware that much distress and, very often, alarm have been caused, especially to young women, in such circumstances. For various reasons, however, many of those affected would be unable to give evidence that would sustain a conviction and, in order to detect offenders, members of the Ban Ghardaí were assigned to duty, over a period of some weeks, in those areas.
The members concerned were fully aware that the object was to detect persons accosting respectable women and they had explicit instructions that it was essential that they should not give anybody passing-by any reason to think that they were women of easy virtue but that they should represent the average respectable girl walking along the street. I am assured that those instructions were scrupulously observed and I have seen no evidence to support any suggestion to the contrary.
I should like the Minister to state whether in the case of girls who have joined the Ban-Gharda it is true or it is not true that before they joined the Force, they were told they would not be used in this reprehensible practice? Is it not a fact that these people, while acting as nothing other than prostitutes, could easily have been seen by people who knew them who could go back to their native villages and say that they were just prostitutes in the streets of Dublin? Will the Minister look into this reprehensible practice of denigrating these girls who joined the Force?
I can only deny that the girls in any way held themselves out to be prostitutes. Their specific instructions were that their demeanour and mode of dress were to convey the exclusive impression that they were ordinary respectable women walking along the streets of Dublin.