: It appears that the Minister has been taken short on this matter and our spokesman seems to be in the same position.
Adjournment Debate . - Garda Overtime .
: The House cannot wait very long for them. They should understand the position better than the Chair but we shall wait a couple of minutes for the spokesman and the Minister. Deputy Harte and the Minister are the people involved. Deputy Harte is really the person involved and he has not shown up.
: Would it be in order for me to deal with this on his behalf or would the Chair prefer to have him here?
: That would not be in order. The Deputy asking that the matter be taken on the adjournment must turn up to take it, but we shall give him a couple of minutes. Deputy Harte received permission to raise on the adjournment the matter of serious security implications being caused by the cutback in the Garda force.
: In approaching this matter I want to be as responsible as possible in my criticism of the Minister's actions or lack of actions and be as little political as I can be. The question of Garda overtime did not start this evening; it goes back to the Conroy Report which recommended that the Garda were entitled to overtime. In 1974, the figure was in excess of £6 million; in 1975, it was £8.5 million approximately; and in 1976, £5 million. In 1977 it was the same figure and in 1978 about £5.4 million. I am told on good authority that the amount available this year will be less than half of what is required, something less than half the figure for 1974—£6 million. My information is that there will be approximately £3 million for overtime this year, that there will be a substantial cutback. I am not in favour of overtime or astronomical figures for it but I support the argument that the Garda are entitled to be compensated for the hours worked, bearing in mind that a garda recruit gets as little as £56 per week and when on full scale about £84 per week.
I recently filled in an application form for a county council loan for a garda and I was shocked when I saw his earnings, particularly the net pay. But for the fact that their income is supplemented in many cases by the earnings of their wives or by some sideline or family business in which they cannot be directly concerned, they would be living below the breadline. It is not good enough for a Government, whether the present Government or the Government in which my party participated, to expect the police force to work for nothing.
At this time of crisis, of national emergency, with the crime rate rising, the least we can expect from our police force is good service. But to get that service we must pay them a reasonable wage. I do not believe their present pay is sufficient for their job. Their job is a most important one. A garda is in the same wage bracket as a person working in the public service whose responsibility is confined to office work, dealing with papers, taking instructions from an officer immediately above him who is never more than next door from him or at the end of a telephone. We must consider the responsibilities of a garda who has to handle delicate matters relating to individuals and to the community. I believe that with their job they are working for buttons. It is time the Government realised the problems that have been created by the Garda having to do duties for which they are not properly compensated.
It may be argued—and I have some sympathy for it—that many garda in receipt of very large amounts of overtime considered that this would be the practice, that if they were giving a good service to the community and to the Government and if they were prepared to work hard and long hours they would be properly rewarded. They committed themselves by building or buying new houses or living on a higher standard, as we all do when our incomes are increased. They now find themselves financially embarrassed since they are not being paid overtime and have not the same opportunity for work.
The Minister may say that increased numbers of garda makes it less necessary to have large provisions for overtime. I do not accept that. I believe that Garda Border duty unknown to the general public has been drastically reduced. Without having hard facts at my disposal I reckon that on a head count there are 10 per cent fewer Garda on Border duty now than there were this time last year. I take umbrage at the Minister's action because his whole contribution as Fianna Fáil spokesman in Opposition was to tell the then Minister, Deputy Cooney, to pay the Garda overtime and so reduce crime. Deputy Cooney argued that he was prepared to give the Garda better pay but every time the present Minister spoke in Opposition, whether by means of parliamentary or supplementary question or adjournment debate, such as I am now engaged in, he made the same case. I have fine-combed the Official Report for the four years during which Fianna Fáil were in Opposition and the main contribution of Deputy Collins as Opposition spokesman on Justice was a castigation of the then Minister, Deputy Cooney, for reducing overtime, overtime which was granted by the National Coalition Government but which, because of the economic situation, had to be cut back.
What, I wonder, will happen in the immediate future? I want to be very blunt about this. If I were a member of the Garda Síochána or if any other Deputy in this House was a member of that force he or I would not be prepared to work for buttons, for wages as low as £56 a week. In the last 24 hours I have seen a wage cheque for a very responsible member of the force, the princely sum of £64 net, and he is in the top bracket of £84 a week. How can the Minister expect a man to support a wife and family and do his job at £60 odd a week? It simply is not possible. That man cannot be happy in his job.
Before Deputy Cooney left the office of Minister for Justice he commissioned a report on the Garda Síochána, the only report ever commissioned by a Government since the force was set up in the 1920s. The report has been available in the Minister's office since last June. He has not acted on it. I am not aware of the details of it though I have got leaks here, there and everywhere. But the Minister has done nothing to implement the recommendations made in that report, recommendations as a result of a study to find out what is required to provide this country with a good police force. Because the gardaí are no longer being paid for doing overtime they are not available on the ground. We have abundant evidence of the result of that every day of the week. Every day there are armed raids. One was the subject of a parliamentary question here today. It related to an armed raid in the Minister's old constituency. Rumour has it—I hope the Minister will tell us whether or not it has any substance—that the Minister's car was diverted by the robbers. I trust the Minister will either confirm or deny that. It could easily have been the Minister. We had two unarmed gardaí protecting £400,000.
I am not on the side of subversion, and far be it from anyone to point the finger at me. Criticising violence is a lonely job in this country, but I do not fail in my duty to criticise. I support the Minister and will support him in every Bill he brings before this House if it is designed to secure the law and order essential to a modern society. What would have been the position had the Minister arrived on the scene when the trap had been laid by a group of armed bandits? What if they had decided, instead of taking the £400,000, they would kidnap the Minister? That is a very serious thing to contemplate. But that could happen with any Minister or any Member of this House.
We are the laughing stock of Europe. Security is at a minimum. In the North of Ireland it does not pay to rob banks or anywhere else because those who might do so know their chances of escape will be very limited. The amount of money coming in from the USA to back up the Provisional IRA has fallen drastically. Now they play havoc with our police force here. The least the Minister can do is to give the gardaí a proper wage on which to support their wives and families. He cannot expect them to do unpaid overtime. If the situation is not rectified speedily we will find ourselves in a very serious position indeed. The 1977 crime report is not available but I am told there is an increase of 25 per cent in serious crimes involving the use of arms. The Minister must know this. I have been told that is the position, but I could be wrong. If crime is tending in that direction, even if there is no increase on last year's figures, it is just not good enough that those who should combat crime are not properly paid for doing so. There should be an independent body to assess the needs of the force. There are not enough gardaí on the ground.
The violence in the North over the last decade has had direct economic repercussions on this part of the country. We must not close our eyes to the situation. It is not just good enough to say "Well, boys, we made lots of promises to you before we were elected but it is not now possible to keep those promises. Paddy Cooney was right. He could not pay the overtime, but he told you that, but now, after we are elected, well, tough luck. We made a mistake or we bluffed you". That is how the gardaí are looking at the Minister now. I have spoken with a number of them over the last 24 hours in the northern part of the Republic and they do not have very pleasant things to say about Minister Collins. They say Minister Collins convinced them before the election that Pat Cooney was the dog in the manager and under him they would never get a good deal. Their conditions would never be what they wanted them to be. He promised them overtime and then took it away but, if there was a Fianna Fáil Government in office and Gerry Collins TD was appointed by Taoiseach Jack Lynch as Minister for Justice, all these faults would be remedied. No one could fault the gardaí for thinking along those lines. Under this Minister a garda has less money in his pay packet and he is expected to to more hours of duty. That is fair comment. If the Minister does not tackle the problem seriously and make available the report that Deputy Cooney, as Minister for Justice commissioned, he should set up a Committee of this House. Unless he introduces it as quickly as possible, I forecast he will have a crisis on his hands, and if that develops it will not be in the national interest. I am not wishing it on him: I am spelling out a reality. The immediate problem is the cutback on overtime, which is directly related to the wage packet. I would recommend strongly that the Minister have an independent body, a Committee of the House, look at both sides of the argument. Naturally the Garda Síochána Representative Bodies would be making arguments to the Department for more money for this and that, that is all part of the act. It will be argued by the civil servants that we cannot afford this and they will have to do with less. I am asking the Minister to set up an independent body which would act without bias and have an open mind and make recommendations to the Minister and the Department that will give us a contented police force.
That is what we need. We can ill afford to do without our police officers. They are doing a tremendous job and get very little thanks in many cases. If something goes wrong in a village people ask where are the local gardaí. They are criticised because they are not present if something happens. I had such an experience over the weekend and had to listen to local people criticising the police. It is impossible for gardaí to be everywhere. There are not enough gardaí in the villages and towns throughout the country. There are insufficient gardaí doing Border duty and doing the number of hours required to make sure that the country is secure and that people can feel safe when they go to bed and have a good night's sleep.
It is a strange state of affairs when private firms operating security companies pay their officers more than we pay our gardaí. I am told by a friend at Dublin Airport, who made no secret of it, that the security officers at Dublin Airport have more money than he has as a garda. Yet, if anything happens, he has to give his services.
I wish the Minister well. Now that the honeymoon is over, I am not satisfied he is tackling the responsibilities given him by this House. I know his job is hard, but I believe without criticism he would not react as I want him to.
: I hope the House will note Deputy Harte's opening remark. He said he wanted to be as responsible as he could. If that is the degree of responsibility one can expect from the Front Bench of the Fine Gael Party, there is great room for improvement all round.
: Do not be personal. The Minister has a case to answer. I am asking for an explanation.
: The Minister has only ten minutes. Nobody interrupted Deputy Harte and I will not let the Minister be interrupted.
: He will have a full ten minutes if he deals with this case.
: If this is another indication of the degree of responsibility——
: This is a ploy for the Minister to get off the hook.
: ——shown by Deputy Harte, that if I want a quiet ten minutes I can only say what he wants me to say, let the House take careful note of that. If, as he says, I am going to have a crisis on my hands, the one man who would fan it out of all proportion, or create it if none existed, is the same Deputy. I regret to note that the Deputy, in the course of the text of the Private Notice Question circulated today and which the Ceann Comhairle has not allowed, made allegations about drastic overtime cutbacks. I understood that tonight's discussion was to deal with that. Instead we rambled from the kidnapping of myself to other things that were farfetched and irrelevant.
Deputy Harte's allegations are unfounded. To some extent they seem to be linked with a newspaper report of statements attributed to the Garda Representative Body about allocations of Garda overtime. Even if this were so, that does not mean they are well founded. They are not. I regret it is necessary to say that in my view, together with what Deputy Harte said, they are likely to encourage criminals. The simple fact of the matter is that in the second half of the last year, after I took office as Minister for Justice, expenditure on Garda overtime was increased substantially. This immediate measure was taken because it would take some time to get extra gardaí recruited and trained. The additional manpower is, and has been for some months, becoming available, and the higher level of policing which was established in the last five months of 1977 is being maintained.
It is quite misleading to speak about overtime expenditure for the month of December last for two reasons. First, December is not a typical month because of the special demands on Garda services arising from Christmas trading; and, second, the comparision made takes no account of the extra manpower which has become available since December.
: I did not mention December. I am talking about now.
: I repeat that the higher level of policing which I succeeded in introducing, and for which I got Government authority, is being maintained. There is no question whatsoever of a drastic cutback in overtime. The provision for Garda overtime in this year's Estimate is not less but marginally greater than last year's, despite the significant increase in manpower and the fact that additional funds are being provided to offset the effect of increased pay rates in the course of the year.
I regret the need to say that references to the lack of Border security and any reduction in our strength there are not only unfounded but are also highly dangerous.
: There are fewer gardaí in Donegal now than there were this time last year.
: I do not suggest that the——
: That is an inaccuracy. I live there.
: Deputy Harte, please. The Minister is entitled to his time the same as you are. He has only ten minutes and Deputy Harte had 20 minutes.
: I know that, but I expect him to be accurate.
: Deputy Harte, please.
: I do not suggest that the Deputy would deliberately seek to create a situation in which a few unbalanced people North of the Border would feel they were justified in engaging in retaliatory action in one of the towns south of the Border, but I cannot afford to mince words on this issue. This is the kind of risk that statements like "lack of Border security" and "serious security crisis" create. When there is no justification for them, the least I can say is that they are deplorable.
: The facts I mentioned were well known before I mentioned them and the Minister knows that.
: We know that a number of members of the force would like to earn more overtime than the very substantial amount they are already earning. This is a legitimate aspiration, but we must recognise it for what it is. In order to avoid damaging the level of policing being provided for the public overtime allocations to each Garda division are carefully tailored to mesh in with the allocation of additional manpower to these divisions. No doubt some members may be disappointed to find that overtime for their division is adjusted because extra gardaíhave been assigned to the divisions concerned, but this does not justify allegations that the overall level of policing in the area has fallen.
As a matter of principle I do not intend to begin to announce specific monthly allocations of overtime for gardaí but I can say that the figure quoted in the recent newspaper article referred to is substantially lower than the actual figure. I do not accept the proposition that individual members of the Garda find their morale damaged because of such incidents as bank raids. Nobody blames an individual member of the force in such cases unless he has been careless. But that is not what we are talking of. There is a clear suggestion in what has been said that higher overtime worked at the end of 1977 is taken out of this year's allocation. There is no foundation for that suggestion. Technically it is correct that overtime worked in December is paid for in January or February. That is normal and inevitable and cannot be interpreted in the way suggested.
I am not saying that there cannot be variations in the level of police provided at local level. Neither am I saying that there may not have been teething troubles at local level in relation to certain assignments, but where such difficulties have occurred they have been resolved by Garda headquarters. There remains the central fact that across the board the level of policing is now much higher than it was in the first half of last year. It is as high as it was in the second half of last year, and that high level is being maintained.
: We shall see.
: A host of other matters were raised by the Deputy but these bear no relevance to what we are discussing this evening. Before the Deputy gives his view of what he thinks is in the 1977 Crime Report he should at least wait for publication of the report, and it should be published in the near future. If he is not satisfied with the number of gardaí on the ground let me remind him that for the four years he sat on these benches, during which time he should have had an influential voice with the then Government, he did not speak even once for the gardaí or about the lack of the presence of police on the ground. The same can be said of the other members of that Government and in particular of my predecessor, who did nothing about the situation.
: Nonsense. The Fianna Fáil Government allowed the police force to fall to its lowest level ever in 1969.
: It was a case of `back to the bicycle' for the gardaí when the Coalition were in power.
: The Minister to conclude.
: The Deputy would do well to listen to Deputy Killilea saying it was the last Government who put the gardaí on bicycles.
The Dáil adjourned at 8.15 p.m. until 10.30 a.m., Thursday, 15 June 1978.