Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 31 Mar 1971

Vol. 252 No. 11

Committee on Finance. - Vote 21: Garda Síochána (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:

That a supplementary sum not exceeding £2,550,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1971, for the salaries and expenses of the Garda Síochána, including pensions,et cetera; for payments of compensation and other expenses arising out of service in the Local Security Force; for the payment of certain witnesses' expenses; and for payment of certain Grants-in-Aid.

—(Minister for Justice).

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): I should like to say a few words about accommodation for members of the Garda Síochána. It is true to say that it is now easier for unmarried gardaí to get permission to live out and thereby escape from the dreadful accommodation provided in barracks. More use should be made of the National Building Agency for the purpose of providing houses for gardaí adjacent to barracks. This would have a two-fold advantage. It would provide decent living accommodation for married gardaí, their wives and families, and it would also facilitate the transfer of gardaí from one area to another. At the moment gardaí find it difficult to get housing accommodation. It is becoming more and more difficult to build houses because the gap between the loan and the cost of the house is widening. Indeed, up to recently, gardaí did not qualify for a county council loan because the salary was just over the limit laid down by the Minister's colleague, the Minister for Local Government, in relation to housing loans by county councils. Building societies were slow enough to lend money for the purpose of building houses in small towns. I do not want to labour the point but there is a great deal to be said for providing through the NBA adequate accommodation for married gardaí. Something has been done but only a small percentage of the dwellings required has been provided.

I would urge the Minister to do something to bring up the standard of barracks. So bad was the position in my town that I wrote to the Department pointing out that the building was a positive danger both to the gardaí and to the general public. Fair dues to the Minister; when the matter was brought to his notice a bulldozer was brought in and it lifted the building completely in a very short time. The gardaí were transferred into temporary accommodation. I thank the Minister for what he did, but a great deal remains to be done. It is no longer necessary to have a very big building to house the gardaí. In the case I mentioned a good dwellinghouse which came on the market was taken and the accommodation is quite satisfactory. If we had to wait for a new Garda barracks to be built it would cost practically three or four times what this quite adequate building cost. I would suggest to the Minister and the Office of Public Works that they should purchase suitable existing buildings which come on the market instead of erecting elaborate Garda barracks.

Many of the old buildings are unsuitable. When the Conroy Report was published there were 200 Garda stations without flush toilets and 160 had no running water; 84 had only out-door flush toilets away from the buildings. This is not something of which we can be proud. As State employees the gardaí are entitled to better working conditions than that. No Garda barracks should be without a flush toilet and running water. These can be provided at the cost of a few hundred pounds. A house will not qualify for a grant, and quite rightly so, unless it is properly serviced.

I should like to say a word now about the Garda band. Prior to 1938, according to the Conroy Report, there were four Garda bands with 85 members. By 1954 the number had been reduced to one. That was disbanded in 1965 after the band had toured the United States, bringing Ireland to America, so to speak. According to the evidence given before the Conroy Commission the Garda band did not cost the Minister very much because there was a fund contributed to on a voluntary basis by members of the force and the band were paid for engagements. The only records of the band costing the Minister anything was in the case of a grant of £450 when it was rehearsing for the American tour. When there were four bands the 85 members were available for about half-time police duties so I suppose it would be true to say that half their salary was paid for the time they spent with the bands. The bandmaster—he was a sergeant—held the rank of honorary superintendent and he was paid a superintendent's salary, but that was not paid by the Minister; it was paid from the fund contributed to by the members of the force and the general public.

One might ask what is the necessity for a band. My own opinion is that we should have more than one band. A band gives status to the gardaí. It gives the force something in which to take pride. Not alone would the gardaí take pride in their band but the general public would be proud of a Garda band parading and playing on State occasions. The trivial and paltry amount of money involved in re-establishing the band would be money well spent. I could never understand the decision to do away with the band.

Earlier I dealt with training. In this age the members of the force should get special training in crowd control, especially members of the force stationed in cities and large towns. Crowd control is a very sophisticated job especially when these crowds are engaging in protests. They may be angry for one reason or another and they may be insulting towards members of the Garda. Therefore, it is necessary for the Garda to have special training in dealing with such situations.

I do not know if I am strictly in order in referring to the next matter but I think I am. I should like to renew the appeal I made here some couple of weeks ago on behalf of members of the Garda who are retired. We are providing money in this Supplementary Estimate to pay salaries and wages. It is necessary that the Garda should be a contented body with no real grievances. The older members of the force, when they are about to retire, feel that they will be on poor pensions and that they will lag and drag behind. The gardaí who retired prior to 1968 are still tied to the 1968 pensions, although the cost of living has gone up dramatically, and although the value of money has fallen drastically. The Minister should use his influence within the Government and he should fight hard for parity for Garda pensioners.

Having said that I think I could also say a word for the widows of deceased gardaí. Some of them, I know, are living in very poor circumstances and some of them are living in poverty. I get pathetic letters time and again pointing out how difficult it is for them to make ends meet. They seem to be living on something like the same amount as a non-contributory pension. The most annoying part of it as far as the widows are concerned is that, if they are in receipt of a non-contributory widow's pension of £1 or 25s, or thereabouts, when they get some little increase in their Garda widow's pension, bang goes the non-contributory pension. There is provision under the old age pension code that where a married man is in receipt of a pension, when his wife dies the pension does not drop because he loses her allowance.

Perhaps something like that could be brought in to provide that where a Garda widow is in receipt of a non-contributory widow's pension—and the House may take it from me that if she is in receipt of a non-contributory widow's pension she is not in receipt of a very generous Garda widow's pension—and her Garda widow's pension is increased she does not suffer a loss in her non-contributory widow's pension. That is not an unreasonable request. These people usually feel very sore, and very hurt, and very annoyed when because they get a few shillings extra from one Department another Department take it away from them.

I commenced by complimenting the Garda force on the great service they have rendered to the State since its foundation. Any suggestions I have made were made in good faith. Most of them were made on the basis of evidence given, conclusions arrived at, recommendations made by the Conroy Commission, particularly in regard to the relationship existing between the Department and the force. I am sure that the Minister, being a young man and bringing a new mind to bear on these matters, will see to it that if the findings of the Conroy Commission in this respect are correct, the cause of grievances will be removed. The Minister should see to it that the strength of the force is increased considerably and brought up to strength to provide an adequate service. I do not think the aptitude test can be quarrelled with and it should be applied to recruits to see that they are, temperamentally as well as physically, and from the educational point of view, completely suited to the job.

Mr. Tully

Since the debate has only a little over three hours to go, and since there are a number of very important Supplementary Estimates to be dealt with, I do not propose to detain the House very long on this Supplementary Estimate. Even though it is a Supplementary Estimate it is for the substantial sum of £2,550,000. I suppose it is pretty hard for people outside this House to understand that, with the exception of £400,000, this money appears to have been spent already or is in the course of being spent. Therefore I will just comment on what the Minister will be considering in the next couple of weeks when the Budget is being prepared.

In passing I should like to say that up to 12 or 18 months ago people were prepared to scream to high heaven on every occasion about Garda brutality and interference by the Garda in the lives of certain citizens, people who wanted to demonstrate in a certain way and who started out to demonstrate peaceably and ended up in a clash with the police. That seems to have almost disappeared and we are all very glad that that is so. We do not find those people doing those things and I am hoping they have grown up and realise that the Garda are there for the purpose of protecting the general public, including those who are mostly inclined to abuse them.

From its inception the Garda force has been made up of very fine types of men and women. There are occasional lapses but from time to time we would all be inclined to get a bit angry and do something we should not do if we were provoked. In addition, as Deputy Fitzpatrick said, we may have a few unsuitable people and they can bring odium on the whole force if they do or say things which are not expected from a uniformed member of the force. In the main we must all compliment the Garda on the job they are doing under what was up to recently extreme provocation. Not only in the city but scattered throughout the country, even in small villages, there is a tendency to thuggery, a tendency for young people to do things they should not do, not for the purpose of looking for publicity, as usual, but from motives of vandalism.

This should be discouraged. I know the Minister has referred to it and said he was increasing the number of gardaí. I do not think the increase is at all adequate for a number of reasons, one of the reasons being that while the normal increase is 200 per year, the Minister must be aware that that is only for the purpose of replacing wastage. Sometimes it is over and sometimes it is under the correct number. An increase of 200 per year over the next two years is surely of very little use in view of the increase in crime and the fact that apparently the tendency has been to withdraw the gardaí from the country districts and the small towns and bring them into the cities. I grant you that the need in the cities may be much greater than in the country districts, but at the same time I do not think the proper thing to do is to leave the country areas and the small towns entirely unprotected or almost unprotected.

The closing down of Garda barracks throughout the country was used as one of the devices to make more gardaí available in the more populated areas, but we all know that there are places where the Garda barracks have been reduced to having a mere skeleton staff or have been closed and the gardaí are needed in those places. I refer particularly to the summer time of the year and to seaside towns in coastal areas where the gardaí are put in an impossible position because along with doing normal duties in towns, they must also go out and try to direct traffic and keep order in the neighbouring resorts. No matter how peaceable the areas may be, the job is beyond them and it is a bit laughable to hear talk of the 42 hour week and the giving of time off to gardaí. I should like the Minister to say whether it is true that quite a number of gardaí have not got time off and that it would be impossible in present circumstances to give the time off due to the present force without closing down the whole lot for a number of weeks. Is that correct and if it is why has there not been some effort to pay overtime to them instead?

I see a reference to the fact that this £1,220,000 is required for payment of overtime night duty and rent allowance. The rent allowance has been paid. How much of this night duty at overtime rate has been paid? How much time off is due to members of the gardaí which it appears they will never get because of the fact that there are not enough of them to go round to make up for those being allowed off? I would also echo the comment by Deputy Fitzpatrick about the guarding of banks. This is the greatest wastage of Garda time. Would the Minister care to comment on what he thinks an unarmed garda can do if a group of bank robbers succeed in going to a bank, going in undetected, as they can, and raiding the bank and when they come out, perhaps with machine guns he discovers that they are in fact bank raiders—what does he think that garda can do except get himself killed as happened one already? Does he not agree that the proper thing to do would be for the banks themselves, which are very rich organisations, to make the necessary arrangements to have a proper type of alarm fitted which would give them the protection they require, because a proper type of alarm which could be linked up with the Garda barracks would give a lot more protection than could be given by some unfortunate garda walking up and down all day in the cold, during last winter, without any protection at all just because somebody felt it might deter bank robbers. I do not know where they got that idea. I do not think it will work and it would simply result in more gardaí being injured or killed if it is continued, and I feel that it should not be allowed to continue. I feel, as I stated here on a number of occasions, that if the situation is so desperate that guards are needed on banks, the proper guards are military guards, armed guards who will meet fire with fire. I am sure the Minister is aware that around this city particularly over the past year or 18 months, private armies, if you like, private security forces have built up— a number of very respectable organisations, employing very decent men and doing a job which normally would fall to the police force, but they are doing the job because the owners of the properties, and indeed the people running the organisations, realise that there are not enough gardaí to do the job. I wonder what type of liaison there is between the gardaí and these. Would it not be a good idea to have the very closest liaison because if they are doing this job and doing it properly, surely they should get the co-operation which could be given to them. Again, in passing, is this not an example of what can be done by private concerns and could the banks not take note of this? Why do they not hire their guards? Why should they require the gardaí paid by the State who have far too much to do apart from this, to guard the banks? Do not let anybody say that they are guarding the people's money because when the money is inside in the banks, it is the property of the banks and not the money belonging to the ordinary people of the country, as some people try to say.

Again, a reference was made to the Garda Band. I regretted very much the disappearance from the scene of the Garda Band. I would like to know if the Minister could say what happened the instruments. His predecessor gave me a promise that they would be available and time off available to members of the band if they wanted to continue practising, in the hope that some time they would be reinstated as a Garda Band. I am talking about the No. 1 Band. The Minister recently said that the Conroy Commission having recommended in a certain way, it was felt that the band would be reinstated some time but that it was pretty low in the order of priorities. The Garda Representative Body did not consider that it was one of the most important, or indeed a very important matter. Perhaps the Minister could spare a couple of minutes to say whether or not it will ever be possible to reconstitute it, or even as a part-time band, to keep it going.

The position as regard widow's pensions has been dealt with during the debate earlier this evening and yesterday, and again this evening by Deputy Fitzpatrick. It is one of the matters which many of us had ocassion to raise here again and again—the effect which increases in Garda widows' pensions had on their ordinary social welfare entitlement. We have so often complaints from Garda widows who got a few shillings increase in pension and subsequently find their social welfare benefit reduced by the same amount and having spent the increased amount they got over a period of weeks, suddenly find that they have to go short for a few weeks to make up the amount. For that reason, I feel that something should be done to make a regulation that if there is an increase in the cost of living, as there always is, which warrants an increase in the amount of benefit being paid to Garda widows, it should be left with them and not taken from them under another heading.

The whole question of what the Garda have to do could be debated here, but I do not propose to enter into it, except to say that one of the things which, in my opinion, is preventing the Garda from dealing perhaps more effectively with vandalism is the tolerance being shown by the judiciary when they are brought before the court. It is ridiculous that somebody who is an utter blackguard, who has been before the court on a number of occasions and who is known to the Garda as being a person who can cause endless trouble and damage, should come before a district justice, get a part on the head and be told to be a good boy. That is what is causing a lot of trouble.

Secondly, the incidence of car and motor cycle stealing in this city is a national disgrace. It is true, as Deputy Fitzpatrick said, that the national newspapers are running an agony column showing the number of cars and motor cycles that have been stolen and a few days after showing the ones recovered as a result of advertisements. I understand that because the Garda are so busy they just cannot get around to looking for cars, even when they are sitting unattended on the side of the street for weeks. I consider it just not good enough to see a car lying on the side of the street—and I noticed it on a number of occasions on the Dublin-Belfast road which I use every day— obviously abandoned by somebody who stole it and ran out of petrol and to watch that car disappearing—the headlamp first, then the door handle and then the windscreen, so that bit by bit the car disappears. Surely there must be some regulations to provide that if a car is reported as having been stolen, some effort should be made to try to get it before it has been completely stolen on the public road.

Again, I am not blaming the gardaí. They appear to have more than enough to do, but is this not a very good argument in favour of increasing substantially the number of gardaí because in relation to the damage done, it would more than pay to have an increased number.

The entire question of car stealing is something which must be dealt with by the district justices or the judges which these people come before, particularly when the people who are coming in are not from the "bottom of the ladder" but very often are the children of reasonably well-to-do people, and these young people have been engaged in what they consider a practical joke. They consider that it is funny to steal somebody's car. I wonder would they consider it so funny if someone stole a car belonging to one or other of their parents? Until we reach a state where the district justices have power to make the people who are supposed to be rearing these young people pay compensation we will have a continuation of that position. The alternative is to send the young people to jail. There is no use in noting that 200 cars were taken in this city in a week. When the young people come before the courts they are told not to do this again and they get a recommendation to be of good character. Often they do not steal a very expensive car. On a number of occasions I have heard of people who drive from the country to work on building sites in the city having had their cars stolen. Just imagine stealing an old jalopy with broken headlamps and a broken windscreen. This car might not be worth more than £40 or £50 but it would be beyond the ability of the owner to replace it. Yet, these people are only told not to steal cars again. When the Minister is replying perhaps he could say whether there is any possibility of meeting this problem.

I could continue about the unease caused by certain things which have been disclosed about the administration of the Special Branch. I hope to get another occasion to do so.

Minister for Justice (Mr. O'Malley)

I would like to deal with some of the points made by Deputies Tully and Fitzpatrick of Cavan, not necessarily in the order in which they were made. Deputy T. J. Fitzpatrick of Cavan complained early in his speech about interference by the Department in the running of the Garda. Afterwards he seemed to contradict himself by complaining that the gardaí were allegedly frustrated by not knowing Government policy in certain matters. That seems to be a contradiction. He tied that in with a reference to paragraph 1267 of the Conroy Report about the alleged state of the relationship between the force and the Department of Justice. I cannot speak with any first-hand knowledge of what way things were before I became Minister but I am not aware that there is any foundation for the implication in that particular paragraph, which seems to me to be somewhat outside the terms of reference of the commission and seems to me to deal with a matter on which no direct evidence was produced to the commission. I am not aware on what grounds that finding could have been made. In any event I cannot agree that there is any foundation for it. It is no harm to point out that since the references in that part of the commission's report are constantly to the Department of Justice rather than to the Minister that I should reiterate that I, in common with each of my predecessors, accept full responsibility for the Department and for the actions of the officials in the Department. If anybody wants to criticise the action of any official I would be glad if that criticism were directed at me and if there were less reference to the Department or to officials of it. It is no harm to remind ourselves of the statutory definition of the role of the Commissioner of the Garda Síochána. He is responsible for the internal administration of the force and the function of the Minister, as set out in the Ministers and Secretaries Act of 1924, is that he has a general responsibility for law and order in the country, including the police. It is the Minister, and not the Commissioner, who is questioned in this House and is responsible to the House and to the public. It is the Minister who is also responsible for obtaining the money to run the Garda. Once that money is obtained for stated purposes as it is on the Estimate each year, the Commissioner has nearly as much authority as the Minister in the spending of it within the limits laid down by this House in granting it to the Minister. I mention that because Deputy T.J. Fitzpatrick of Cavan complained of an alleged over-supervision of the financial administration of the Garda. I do not think that the facts would bear that out.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): I do not wish to interrupt the Minister. I was quoting from the findings of the commission. Any remarks I made were directed at the Minister as the Minister in charge of the Department.

Mr. O'Malley

I would like to refer to the question of overtime in the Garda and the question of payment for it which was referred to by Deputy Tully. Like others, Deputy Tully is under something of a misapprehension. The recommendation of the Conroy Report in this respect has been implemented. It was implemented very quickly. This has given rise to many administrative problems. Deputy Tully referred to the fact that it was impossible to give the Garda enough time off. It was not possible to give them the time off to which they were entitled. The Deputy said that, in fact, they were not getting time off and that they were not being paid. The position is that there is no entitlement under the Conroy Report for payment for overtime worked. There is an entitlement to time off in lieu within three months and if that time off in lieu cannot be given—and in many instances it was impossible to give it in the busier centres—then payment is due and every payable claim for overtime which has been submitted to my Department has, in fact, been paid.

Mr. Tully

Has payment been made recently? Up until a short time ago this was not so.

Mr. O'Malley

The Deputy may be under a misapprehension by reason of the fact that the claim cannot even be made until a period of three months has elapsed anyway. Therefore in practice the claims are not made for about five months but that does not entail any delay on the part of the Department or of the Garda officers——

Mr. Tully

Of course it does.

Mr. O'Malley

——because in the very nature of the thing the claim cannot be submitted for certification by the higher officers of the Garda Síochána until about four months have elapsed. The cost of overtime in the financial year that will end tonight has been about £400,000 which is extremely high and a good deal more than was envisaged at the time the recommendation was put into effect last April.

Deputy Fitzpatrick dealt with the possible future role of the garda and in broad terms I agree with him. Certainly I agree with the recommendation at paragraph 1182 of Conroy that gardaí should be relieved of what one could describe as non-police duties. A number of these are set out there, such as the collection of agricultural statistics, which the commission found in 1967 took up no less than 203,000 manhours. I am making arrangements to try to relieve the gardaí of that onerous and very obvious non-police duty. However, they have traditionally done it and it is difficult for the other Departments concerned to adjust to a very rapid change. New arrangements have to be brought in gradually.

Similarly, I am trying to make the necessary arrangements with the Department of Social Welfare about the certification of claims for unemployment assistance. Equally I want to relieve the gardaí of duties they have under the School Attendance Act because, apart from being a non-police duty it is unsatisfactory from the point of view of the public image of the gardaí with young people that they should have to enforce this Act.

I regard the inspection of weights and measures as a matter for the local authorities. The only place that I disagree with Conroy is in regard to his suggestion that the collection of excise duties for firearm certificates be taken over by somebody else. That is very much a matter for the gardaí and it will certainly remain within their province. There is a further very important sector of the guards' work at present which is not mentioned by Conroy as a non-police duty because it has been very much taken for granted by everybody but which we should now begin to question, and that is the question of the enforcement of road traffic legislation to which Deputy Fitzpatrick quite correctly referred.

We have now to consider whether or not this is a police duty properly speaking and whether the Garda Síochána as a police force should indefinitely continue to enforce road traffic legislation. It is my belief that they should not and although we are only at what I might call a very preliminary stage in our thinking on this matter, the Minister for Local Government agrees with me in principle that we must aim over the coming years—or perhaps more accurately I should say decades, because it is something that will have to be done slowly—at taking away from the Garda Síochána the enforcement of road traffic legislation and the establishment in a very gradual way, and I want to emphasise that, of a separate traffic police corps. The very faint beginnings of that can be seen in the appointment of traffic wardens and in the gradual extension of their powers. I want again to emphasise that this is something that is not likely to happen soon and it will have to be a very gradual evolution, but if we are to make any long-term planning for the Garda Síochána we will have to begin to plan for the years ahead in those terms.

The question of planning to which Deputy Fitzpatrick referred causes me to remind him that one of the recommendations in Conroy was the establishment of a planning unit and that has been set up and it has already done quite a good deal of work. It has not yet got around to the sort of long-term planning that would be entailed by this approach that I have suggested to road traffic legislation, because there is a good deal of planning, reorganisation and research that has to be carried out in respect of the present administration by the gardaí of their existing duties. The research and planning unit has become very actively engaged in that and has shown every sign of being successful in the redeployment of the force.

To my mind one of the most important improvements that need to be made in the way the force is deployed and the way it is equipped is the provision of a proper radio service. I agree that the present radio service is deficient and does not by any means cover a sufficiently wide area of the country. This means that many gardaí have to be kept in places and on duties to which otherwise they might not have to be confined. A guard is much more useful if he has at his disposal proper equipment and the two major parts of a policeman's equipment in the modern world are a proper radio service and proper transport. A special survey team was set up by me a few months ago to examine the whole radio question and to make recommendations on the question of the form a national radio network should take. I am hopeful that they will make their recommendations in a matter of months. They have been studying radio networks in the police forces in Britain and also the radio networks of other organisations in this country. I am hopeful that as a result of their recommendations we will shortly be able to take the first positive steps towards what I regard as the most important of all improvements in equipment for the Garda, a proper national radio network.

On the question of aptitude tests which were recommended by Conroy and which were pressed by Deputy Fitzpatrick, I have no great objection to them but perhaps the best opportunity that senior officers of the Garda have for assessing a recruit's potential or aptitude for service in the force is during the five months which he spends in Templemore. That period of five months, when he is under observation by training officers, is a more certain way, than perhaps a very short test by a psychologist, of assessing his aptitude. In view of the fact that there are over 6,500 men in the force there are very, very few misfits indeed, and I think that is due to the fact that there is this five months training period during which recruits are under observation and during which those who are unsuitable can be weeded out. Perhaps that is the best and most effective test of a person's potential or a person's aptitude.

I have dealt fairly extensively in the House in reply to questions about the alleged protection of banks and hoped I should not have to deal with it again. In fact, it appears I shall. I want to make perfectly clear that the gardaí who are on duty in the vicinity of banks are not guarding banks as such. They are on short beats which take in the banks. They are not there at the request of the banks. They are there because the Commissioner, in his discretion and with the advice of his senior officers, has decided it is in the national interest to have them there.

Mr. Tully

All cod.

Mr. O'Malley

They are not there to protect the banks money or the people's money but because the Commissioner knows that their presence will prevent serious crime. I think I may fairly say their presence has prevented serious crime. The allegation is made from time to time in this House and elsewhere that the banks should protect their own property but if other firms spent half as much or went to half as much trouble as the banks do to protect their property we would have very much less crime. Deputy Tully suggested alarm systems to Garda stations: in fact there is an alarm system from practically every bank in the country to the nearest Garda station.

Mr. Tully

And what are the gardaí doing, just walking up and down?

Mr. O'Malley

Preventing serious crime and being very successful in doing so.

Mr. Coughlan

The alarm only operates when the place is closed.

Mr. O'Malley

Almost 12 months ago there was a very unfortunate incident in this city outside a bank and the garda who lost his life in the incident arrived at the bank as a result of an alarm which went off during opening hours. It is scarcely necessary to say any more on that. I think I have covered all the points raised in this short debate.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): What about the band?

Mr. O'Malley

There were 38 members of the band and if I restored the band in the morning I would reduce the effective strength of the force by 38. I feel a good deal of sympathy with the case made here particularly as I recall being in Templemore last summer at a passing out parade when recorded music was in use and recorded music on such an occasion was not a success, but at present there are many more urgent calls on our resources. I shall do the best I can. We might be able to work out some part-time system, as it were, for the band which might surmount some of the difficulties.

Mr. Tully

Are the instruments still available?

Mr. O'Malley

Yes, I think so.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): There are 27 members still available.

Mr. Tully

Has the Minister any comment to make on car stealing?

Mr. O'Malley

I heard Deputy Tully comment on the sentences passed or not passed in this connection. As Minister for Justice I cannot comment on that matter. The judiciary are independent. All I can say is that the gardaí are making every effort to cope with this problem which is one in which individual car owners can play a very important part. It is extraordinary that in this city with so much stealing of cars going on, people leave their cars unlocked or in such a way that they can be fairly readily stolen. What I recommend is what the gardaí have recommended for a long time, the fitting of one or other of the anti-theft devices to all cars.

Vote put and agreed to.