First, I should like to congratulate the Minister on his appointment. I do not think any Member of this House would envy him his job; it is a most onerous and difficult portfolio. Indeed, I would think that the prospects of success in that portfolio for our parliamentary colleague are good, not the least of which arises from the fact that he is not a lawyer, he is one of the very few non-legal luminaries of this House who has taken over the portfolio of the Department of Justice. As such he may well see a new perspective in his task, in that very difficult and controversial Department where there are plenty of knocks to be taken and very little kudos to be received.
I welcome the Bill. I know it is not the brainchild of the present Minister. We are fully aware that it constitutes the outcome of tortuous, detailed, very complex and difficult negotiations between the Garda Representative Body, the Department of Justice and the former Minister. I welcome the Bill in as much as it is a step forward in what I would hope ultimately would be a proper, democratic and responsive system of industrial relations to cater for the Garda and also, I would hope, for the other branch of our security forces, namely, the Army where there is no parallel system either of conciliation or of arbitration. As we know, the situation vis-à-vis the Army is much more intolerable. In the so-called open society we are supposed to have, in the parliamentary democracy we are supposed to administer, we have a situation in which both the Garda and the Army have but the minimum opportunity of exercising democracy in its truest and most responsible sense while performing their daily duties on behalf of all our citizens.
It is true to say that, over the years, the Garda Síochána have been caught in a vice in relation to their industrial relations. Once in power the political parties—and this applies as much to the Fine Gael and Labour Parties as it does now to Fianna Fáil—regard the Garda Síochána as a disciplined force. Indeed, the words "disciplined force" appear with monotonous regularity in relation to responses and representations in respect of their industrial relations system. All the political parties, including my own, have been very slow, not very imaginative and very reluctant to concede that there should be a very sensitive and flexible system of industrial relations within the Garda Síochána. There has always been this abiding fear within the Cabinets that somehow or another if one gives way in terms of representations over the years the Garda Síochána will finish up going on strike, that the country would be in a state of prospective peril were they to receive such a concession in terms of trade union organisation and ordinary conciliation and arbitration procedures. It is true to say that the country is now somewhat more mature in terms of the fear to which I have just referred, or in terms of that over-reaction illustrated down the years. This Bill is a slight indication of that maturity of reaction from the political parties.
Another matter that has affected the Garda Síochána, of course, is the Department of Justice. There has always been this tension—I suppose it is healthy in many ways—between the permanent public service, the hierarchy of the Department and the representative body, in so far as they are representative, of the Garda Síochána. It is a necessary tension because we politicians come and go. Essentially Ministers for Justice are birds of passage who leave their marks behind them. I suppose the public servants regard it as their national duty to keep the game under control, if you like, while politicians make their entries and exits over the years. But on occasions there has been excessive tension.
In relation to traditional departmental attitudes regarding the industrial relations system of a disciplined force there is still an excessive rigidity. In his span of office—it may be a period of four years—the Minister will be able to take a long view of the role of industrial relations in the Garda Síochána. I hope he will loosen the umbilical cord between the Department and its ever permanent eye keeping a watch on the system of industrial relations in the Garda Síochána.
There are three factors that come into consideration—the political parties, the Department and the Commissioner. During the years the one terror the Commissioners have had is of being called before the Minister and the Government of the day and being asked what is going on within the force, what the members are doing and what they are writing in the journal of the Garda Representative Body. We have had many eminent Commissioners during the years but all of them were subjected to the same pressures. They have been extremely sensitive about the Garda Síochána having a proper system of industrial relations lest they lose the sense of discipline they exert over the force. Many of the Commissioners have been quite ruthless in exerting that discipline.
In spite of the three pressures I have mentioned I am glad we have a Bill that goes a small step of the way towards having formal trade union organisation, representation and rights, and I stress the word "rights". Of course, security duties run parallel to that. We have gone but a small step of the way. As in a number of western European democracies, I believe the Garda Síochána and the Army should have a formal right to have a trade union. The right to strike is a security matter and it is one on which most of the political parties tend to share a common attitude. If the Executive in the national interest deny to the Garda Síochána or the Army the right to withdraw their labour and thus put the country in peril we must, as a parallel, have systems of industrial relations that are exceptionally sensitive to the needs of the security forces. We have not done that, even in relation to this Bill.
I am not necessarily critical of the Minister. Perhaps I would be more critical of the extent of the response in relation to the previous negotiations in which the Minister was not involved. During the years I have asked that the State should not stand in the way of the Garda Representative Body seeking direct liaison with and possibly applying for membership of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions—whether they would be accepted is another matter. I have always held the view that they should be allowed to do this and I do not think there is any danger in it. I do not think the Commissioner would have to examine the constitution of the ICTU to find out if it was a subversive organisation if the Garda Representative Body were given the right to apply for membership of, say, the Public Services Committee of the ICTU. They do not have that right. They should not be left in a situation where isolation inevitably produces tensions and a sense of being left out in the cold in the public service. I would urge the Minister to have an open mind on this matter and to use his good offices.
This legislation is an agreed measure and is the outcome of negotiations. The Labour Party do not propose to oppose it because it is part of the package settlement between the Garda Síochána and the Minister. I suggest it would be in the national interest if at a future date the Minister would sit down and consider the matter calmly, well away from what happened prior to the last election. I had a certain sympathy for the former Minister for Justice because the closer the election got the more the questions we are discussing now became political footballs. There is no better footballer on the political scene than the Minister, Deputy Collins. I think he fielded quite a few more balls than did Deputy Cooney during the closing weeks of the last Dáil and he managed to emerge in a favourable light, at least from the public relations point of view.
Be that as it may, the Minister now has four years to consider what might be done. He has sufficient confidence and is tough enough to ask his own Department to prepare a position paper whereby in the future there would be mutual agreement that the Garda Representative Body would be able if they wished to apply for membership of the ICTU. That would be a step in the right direction. It would be most beneficial to the conduct of negotiations in the Commissioner's office.
There would also be other benefits. A person who spends all his life as a politician finishes up a marked man. The scars of politics, of office and the hurly-burly of political life leave their mark. Similarly, a journalist finishes up with scars also. The same can be said for a garda who may have to wait for 40 years before he can claim his pension. Inevitably that will have an effect on a member of our security forces, on his personality and on his social and industrial relations within the force. That is why I am in favour of the various segments in the public service, in the State-sponsored sector, in the Garda Síochána and in the Army having an opportunity of becoming totally involved in other spheres of industrial relations. They should have a close relationship with other trade unions in the ICTU. It would be mutually beneficial. Many of the myths, the phobias and the tensions which emerge when one is exclusively engaged in one profession would tend to be eliminated.
I would ask the Minister to consider the following point. The Garda Síochána are not given the right to strike because of security considerations. That prohibition has never been fully debated in the House in a calm, objective manner. It is almost impossible to debate this in a political party because you run into the brick wall of attitudes. Debating it in public tends to be less conducive to clarity than debating it in private. The Garda now have access to a more sensitive system of conciliation and arbitration. This was not won without a fair degree of internal battle. I am not referring to the Department alone but to the Commissioner's office also. I do not think there is much point in elaborating too much on this because people become so sensitive in relation to their attitudes that it does more harm than good. It is no use giving the Garda beautiful operational systems and beautiful representation systems. We know, unlike any other section of the public service, who can go on strike, that we have the Garda in the long run.
The Minister should ensure that since there are clear limitations on the extent of the negotiations at conciliation and arbitration level there will have to be an exceptional response. I refer particularly to procedures relating to discipline, transfers, promotions, conditions of employment, pay and remuneration. I believe those will follow the pattern of the public service. There has been a great improvement in the levels of pay and conditions of employment of members of the Garda Síochána over the years but one always has expectations, no matter how well paid one is, even a politician. Higher levels of pay very often create expectations.
I have always been extremely concerned about overtime within the Garda Síochána. I do not propose to elaborate on this because it is outside the scope of the Bill. I urge the Minister and the Garda representative body not to permit a recurrence of the situation which we had some years ago where the standard of living and the expectations of the force became dependent on the level of overtime. They then had a standard of living in excess of the normal salary.
I believe we will have in 1979 and 1980 a situation where the State, in terms of projecting budgetary revenue in the context of the policies followed by the Minister for Finance, will be adding on another £3 million or £4 million per annum for overtime rates. It will become so much part of the pattern of remuneration that in the long run we will not have a contented force. I would prefer to see such money spent on responsibility, allowances, and increases above the norm of the national pay agreement. I am not a Margaret Thatcher in that regard where she is just scoring cheap political points in Britain asking that members of the police force be paid above the national norm.
I believe a great deal of dissatisfaction and of the retrospective problems within the Garda Síochána arise from the system of overtime which is operated. The Minister should ask his staff to consult frequently with the Garda Representative Body to ensure that the system of conciliation and arbitration does not get bogged down on that issue. When politicians talk about security issues they often talk without very much consultation and put forward their own pet prejudices and in the long run we sometimes do more harm than good. I hope I have not done so in my reaction to the Bill.
I welcome the Bill and I wish it a speedy passage through the House. It is not our intention to put down amendments. When we saw it first we were tempted to put down amendments. One could put them down but I think the agreements arrived at should be speedily implemented and we should move forward. I believe that in the years ahead a new generation of young Irishmen serving their country in the Garda Síochána will have very different social and political attitudes than the men of my generation and my father's generation. They will not be prepared to take some of the retrospective and historical conditions and attitudes which in a previous day were all right. In ten years' time such men and women going into or coming out of Templemore, or anywhere on the beat around the country, will be a very different group. The politicians should plan ahead for that type of social change and for the kind of problems which will face the people. I commend the Minister for his speedy introduction of this Bill and wish him well in his portfolio. I hope the House will give the Bill a speedy passage.
