This Estimate covers practically all activities of the Department and what falls naturally into a number of subheads is set out in the Minister's opening statement. Some of these are interlinked; others are not obviously connected. I should like to begin with a few words about the Garda as other Deputies have done. We are unanimous in praise of our police force but the police force or the Garda, no more than any other human institution, will not thrive merely on compliments and pleasant words. If our police force in the modern setup we now have here is to be effective it must have certain facilities and it must have the support of the people. From our point oi view the first question to ask is: what is the basic element that goes into a police force? No matter how much we talk about mechanisms, about cars, radios and such things the basic unit is the man, the individual garda. To express my own view, I think our police force is under strength for our requirements, having regard to modern conditions. We need more men in the Force and, as the Minister himself remarked in his statement, more men available for what are properly police duties.
I should not like to think—and it has been suggested to me—that financial restrictions would come into this matter of keeping the Force up to the strength needed. What that strength should be is a matter for expert examination, I freely concede, but I should like to ask the Minister if we have been in the position in recent times when we could get recruits and there were financial restrictions to prevent us getting them. It was said in the very recent past that the recruits were not on offer but I would not be talking as I am now if I had not a reason for asking this question—not having very precise information I am merely putting it as a question—have the Garda been able to recruit what is available, because it is vitally important that they should? Have financial restrictions, what I might call ordinary budget restrictions, Department of Finance restrictions, if I may put it that way, been operating to the detriment of the Garda?
I do not want to go back over old ground but the reason I raise the point at all is that it happened more than 20 years ago that it was my job to review the situation of the recruitment to the Defence Forces before the last war and the story of the dead hand of the administration was an appalling one from whose consequences we only escaped by a very fortunate concatenation of causes in 1939 and 1940. This is not the Estimate on which to go into detail but I mention that fact to ground the fears that I have in this case that it could happen. If recruits were available to bring the Garda up to a strength that would be desirable, I should like to be reassured that no mere financial restrictions have operated in that regard.
I am not making that point merely as a criticism of any other Department. The Department of Finance have their job to do and I do not mean it to be taken as a criticism of the Department of Finance but in relation to one very fundamental thing about police duties. The efficient functioning of a police force depends on having sufficient men available for the jobs in hand and as far as I can see—maybe I am wrong; I have not any figures—but from a casual impression, looking at the strength of the police forces across the Atlantic, on the Continent of Europe and across the water in Britain, I rather think that the strength of our police force may, perhaps, be a little low. I should not say "a little low"—"inadequate" might be the better word.
In that connection there is a very interesting comment to be made on something that happened in London only a week ago. I was not there myself but from reading newspaper reports and from what I have heard directly, the police force in London were able to deal with what could have been an extremely ugly situation in a very competent way and, what is more, in a very restrained manner, and got a very favourable press all over the world for their behaviour—an unarmed police force which did not even go so far as drawing their batons, collectively anyway.
That is all very admirable and that is a very fine ideal and one that I should like to see here but let us who are talking about this problem not blind ourselves to the fact that that excellent performance of that police force depended, first, on having the numbers. If you look carefully at what happened in London you will see that there was a very strong force available, a force that was so strong that it was possible for it to function in the way it did. This is a vital point in this question of responsible police action in the mass. I am not taking away from the high organisation and the good leading. That is the second factor that comes into the situation. The point I want to emphasise for the purpose of this Estimate is the numbers that were there. In dealing with things like that, difficulties often arise where you have an insufficient number of men, who are then attacked in such a way that they have no option but to act in a way that people afterwards will feel was a little harsh.
Let us understand this—and the ultimate responsibility comes back on us—in that London demonstration there were enough police there to keep the situation under control. There was a big enough body and even the moral effect of that prevented further undesirable things happening. But, if you have only a handful of unfortunate gardaí, first of all, there is a temptation to rush them and get the better of them and, secondly, in that situation a small body of men trying to enforce order, if they have not got the mass behind them, have a very simple but horrible choice—either not to do their duty, or else, in the doing of their duty they are forced to act in a way that could be avoided if the strength of the Force were sufficient.
The same thing goes for crime in general, especially in highly-organised modern cities. If you have a weak police force and it is not properly backed up, then the individual policeman will be the victim very often of the criminal. I remember in the past year raising this point about the undesirability of unfortunate gardaí being left singly patrolling parts of my own constituency at night time. We have all known of cases of gardaí who have been seriously injured. I pleaded here years ago that they should patrol in pairs. This has helped very materially with the squad car and radio contact. I know that is so. The point I want to make is that by the very fact that you have a police force of sufficient strength you have won nearly half the battle of order, quite apart from the fact that you are also ensuring that the morale of the force is maintained. Therefore, the first plea that I should like to make to the Minister is to see that in future, even if we have to pinch in other directions, the strength, and particularly the available strength, of the Garda Síochána be maintained.
Granted the strength, we have now a second consideration—the remuneration of the policeman. I do not want to go into this in any detail, nor do I want to go into it in connection with the specific circumstances of the moment, but I want to talk about a principle. In the 19th century and in the early part of the 20th century here and, indeed, in many other places as well, there was a tendency to think that when everything is arranged in the administrative office, life is ordered. The people in the administrative offices are vitally important, too, but there is a tendency to think that the whole community completely depends on the man in the office— whether I start with the Minister himself down to the whole of the public service organisation—and that everything else is completely subordinate. I think we are getting to the stage when it might be very useful for governments and administrators to remember that their position and the ultimate sanctions depend on the garda, just as the ultimate economy depends on the worker. I would be digressing rather far in discussing the relative merits of people in a community but I have often thought that one of the things that are wrong with our modern civilisation is just this fact that the productive worker, the garda who maintains law and order, the person who is actually doing the work, is regarded as a worker, as being on a lower level to the administrator. He is just as important in the community as any other branch of the public service or of the community as a whole and in assessing remuneration and status this factor should be taken into account.
I do not want to go into detail in regard to remuneration here but I should like to enunciate the principle that, whether it is the teacher, the Garda, the technical officer or any other member of the public service, these are as vital as any other section of the community and remuneration and conditions should be comparable. Graduations of responsibility in all parts of the public service will naturally carry their remuneration as well. In the last analysis it is on these categories I mentioned that the stability of the whole structure ultimately depends.
Therefore, in asking the Minister the question I have asked about keeping up the strength of the force, I should like to mention the second principle, what I call the social evaluation and the social worth of the Gardaí. Lastly, of course, there comes in the question of facilities and technical equipment, which is receiving attention and, reading the Minister's speech, I do not think it calls for any other comment from us here than to say: Go ahead with that. That is good work.
The next thing is the availability of Gardaí for duty. That is a difficult matter. I notice the Minister refers to the absorption of the Gardaí in traffic duties. It is an improvement to be able to shed off, in this city at any rate, the parking duties, and to bring in traffic wardens. It might not be any harm to make this remark in parenthesis: these wardens will need a certain amount of support; the situation has become rather chaotic and they have, to say the least of it, a pretty tough job before them. But granted these wardens, there will always be a necessity for certain traffic police, motor cycle police in particular. I presume these problems are having attention, but the main function of a police force of preserving law and order in the community and protecting the law-abiding citizen should not be lost sight of, and it is for that essentially the Gardaí are needed.
On many previous occasions with other Ministers here I have talked about the support of the Gardaí by officialdom and by the public. It is vitally important that the good relations the Gardaí have established over 45 years with the community as a whole should be maintained. On their side it means a certain amount of forbearance and courtesy, but they should also remember that they are esteemed and respected for the firmness and efficiency with which they do their duty.
This comes back to the whole question of the morale of the force. Granting, as I say, the first two points I made—strength and working conditions and remuneration—it is vitally necessary that they should get the support of the community and, in particular, of the administration and of the courts. I do not think it would be fair to suggest that they are not getting support from the Government and particularly from the Department of Justice. There can be no complaint with that Department on that score. However, it has been far too often said that the Gardaí are very often not supported when it comes to the prosecution of a criminal apprehended, and that can arise in two ways. The most dangerous way is where the criminal, because of a legal technicality or what I might call sloppy thinking, is able to thumb his nose at the Gardaí. Remember, a garda is a human being, and if the garda finds, having done his duty, that the result of it is that somebody who is guilty can turn around and sneer at him because he has been made into an object of pity, it is very disheartening. It is all right where that is a genuine case, but there are too many of the other type of case. The garda who has that experience once or twice has a hard battle to keep up his morale and to do his duty.
While I would not go so far as Deputy Coogan, my own approach to this is that, except in the case of first offenders—very often you can win them and I want to accept that, but I am referring to the cynical, hardened criminal—we must not make the mistake of sacrificing the community to the criminal. I do not want to suggest for a moment that he should be unjustly treated or made an example of. However, we must weigh up whether the effect of what has been done is to sacrifice the law-abiding citizen.
There have been many instances of violent crime where the perpetrators got off because somebody wanted to reform them. They may be put in jail, a home from home, as it is now. What about the person who has been assaulted? What about the rights of the community and order in the community? What about the right of the law-abiding citizen to move abroad freely? That is a side of the story that has to be looked into. There is also the question of the morale of the Garda. Everybody should be alert to these problems.
I know the pattern is changing. I know the pattern in the world is changing. I know that problems of this nature are very difficult and that it is very easy to make black and white statements standing here and to make all reasonable allowances for the things that may be said and the arguments that can validly be advanced, but the old British system—and I make no apology for referring to it—as operated in England was a very fine one. It went on the principle that the law was for all citizens without respect to persons and it was to be so administered impartially and there were courts and judges who did that. The law was meticulously administered and gave the benefit of the doubt. If there was a doubt it was given to the criminal because, as the maxim went, it is better that ten guilty persons should go free than that one innocent person should be convicted.
Taking all that into account you had a judiciary, a judicial system and a legal framework uncomplicated by a lot of the psychiatry and psychosis that have come into modern life. That in itself was a very just protection for the criminal and a very fine safeguard for the law-abiding citizen. The way in which those judges functioned had the effect of keeping the police force up to scratch. It was necessary for the police force to be efficient and to operate properly. Mark you, under that system if there was any dereliction of duty or abuse of power by the police the same court that protected the community from the criminal by means of a sentence of the court, which was duly executed afterwards, controlled the functioning of the police arm. If a policeman was guilty of any particular crime, particularly of the abuse of his own duties and powers, merciless and exemplary sentences were imposed.
There is still much to be said for that system but for its efficient working it presupposes certain things. It presupposes, first, that the police force is efficiently organised and has the numbers to do the job; secondly, it presupposes that there is a code of law there that will enable the courts to take that impartial judicial view of each individual case, and, thirdly, it presupposes facilities and organisation for the execution of the sentence. This is happening all over the world and is bound to happen. I do not know what the answer to the problem is but it is bound to happen in huge conglomerate cities like New York or any other big city, and Dublin is becoming a big city now. What are you going to do about it? I know that half the trouble stems from the fact that nobody wants to maintain jails. On more than one occasion I have been tempted— although I have not actually done it as I was not sure that the form in which I would do it would be in the public interest—to ask a question about culpable homicide. I do not want a general answer to this; I just want to raise the thought. I should like to know how many people convicted of culpable homicide have served a term at all comparable with the crime involved. I know that this is not peculiar to this country but it would be interesting to go back on the statistics of convictions for murder and serious assault and see exactly what happened. If these statistics were to be sought out one might have many questions to ask. One problem which the Department of Justice and the police are up against in all this is to some extent a financial problem, to cope with the post-sentence phase where the criminal is involved.
I always remember the night we passed the Bill abolishing capital punishment. A number of individuals thought that the ordinary human being does not want to see anybody, even the unfortunate murderer, being capitally punished. My own view is that I would only consider this necessary where it is in the interests of the community. However, one has to keep that open and the murder of a Garda or a warder would be something which must be met in that way, or else the whole order falls. However, that night some people in this House, some women, approached me and to my surprise they said: "It is all right for you people but if you had to move around as we have to, returning home from our jobs at 11 o'clock at night you would know what it means to run the danger of assault or of having the few pounds you have on you taken from you".
That was said to me in this House. I do not want to be more specific because it might identify the people and the class who said it but I never forgot it. It is a thought that we should keep in our minds in dealing with this whole problem of the police and the problem of dealing with crime. Ninety per cent of the community are law-abiding, useful citizens and it is they who suffer and they who pay if law and order are not maintained. That mere fact alone must point to the vital importance of the Garda and of warders in prison. Before moving from this aspect I should also like to repeat what I have said on many previous occasions, that where a warder or a Garda is injured in the course of his duty adequate compensation should be available, the criminal responsible should be dealt with accordingly and the law enforced in such a way that the probability of similar occurrences would be reduced to very small proportions. What I have said here is not to be taken in any way as a criticism of the Minister or his Department, for rather am I trying to say things that might be helpful to the Department. The Department and the Minister must be vitally interested in having a police force of adequate strength and morale, efficiently organised to deal with the problems that they know only too well exist.
Under the heading of crime, I shall not go into details. Neither shall I go into the details as to what I think the criminal law should be, but we must, I think, face the fact that, when you have big urban centres growing up, such as you have in Dublin and its environs at the moment, the problem of indictable crime will undoubtedly grow. Let us face it. I do not see in these figures any ground whatever for criticising either the administration of the Department of Justice or the Garda Síochána. I am, in fact, agreeably surprised that we have been able to maintain a relatively favourable situation for so long, but that is all the more reason why thought should be given to maintaining that situation at any cost.
With regard to criminal legislation one has to be a little bit careful of how it is framed. I am afraid there is a tendency in modern times for Departments to frame legislation to deal with particular cases as those particular cases arise. It is becoming too easy to get Acts of Parliament through modern parliaments. It would be better, in my view, to deal with more general principles and general propositions because there is always a danger in too specific legislation. I came across a case recently which will show what I mean. An Act was passed for a very good purpose. I think most people would agree with the purpose. When it came to be applied an attempt was made in court to apply it in a way that was never intended, if one is to judge by what was said here. We know, of course, that no matter what the Minister says, or what any one of us here says, that will have nothing to do with the subsequent interpretation of the particular law. The Act will be interpreted by the court without regard to parliamentary discussion; I might add that it is a very good job that that is so.
How does it work? A section of an Act was designed to protect the accused. The whole purpose was to prevent publicity in a certain case in order to protect the accused. There was a case—I shall not go into the details, but it was very interesting—in which an attempt was made—it did not succeed—to turn that Act around for a totally different purpose, a pernicious purpose, to my mind. I am not saying that was deliberately contemplated, but it shows the danger of a certain type of ad hoc legislation.
One does not want to make the job of those who administer the law any harder and so I shall take another example to illustrate what I mean and to show how things can operate in the public service. This is outside the scope of the Estimate, but I want to use the illustration to show my point. There was an old rule of law that a local authority was responsible for misfeasance and not for monfeasance. If a local authority did a job of work on a road, so long as that law was there, it at least left the road in a reasonable condition afterwards. I think that was abolished.
