Vol. 463 No. 6
18 Mr. Sargent asked the Minister for Justice the plans, if any, she has to allocate gardaí to the Balbriggan, Skerries, Rush and Lusk areas of County Dublin in order that community policing which has been so successful in the other areas of Dublin North can be introduced in the north Fingal area. [7072/96]
26 Mr. Sargent asked the Minister for Justice her views on the injustice of gardaí in the Balbriggan, Skerries, Rush and Lusk areas of County Dublin being required to escort young offenders to district destinations in which no obligation falls to gardaí in the area of the offender to provide a similar escort; and her further views on whether it is time to exercise fair play in this regard in view of the growing trend of Dublin generated rural crime and the shortage of Garda manpower in the Balbriggan area. [7071/96]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 18 and 26 together.
The deployment of the force to individual areas is a matter for the Garda authorities. There is no community policing scheme in operation in the Balbriggan district. I understand however that the local divisional officer is examining the possibility of assigning a garda to community policing duties in the Balbriggan area.
With regard to the need for gardaí to escort young offenders from detention centres in the Balbriggan district, I am informed by the Garda authorities that the gardaí from Lusk and other stations within the Balbriggan district, are called upon to escort juvenile detainees from the detention centres at Oberstown House and Trinity House, Lusk to courts, as required. They have informed me that it is not feasible to separate escort responsibility for Oberstown House and Trinity House, Lusk from normal policing duties within the district.
I share the Deputy's concern that gardaí are reassigned from other duties to provide escorts. While this is in the public interest it is a matter I have asked my Department to examine.
This problem has to be addressed and merits more than an examination. Will the Minister facilitate a positive result? Will she be prepared, once the examination is complete and it is discovered that every single hour of Garda time is committed to escorting prisoners, be it to Cork or Tipperary, or the hard work of tracking down drug traffickers, burglars and so on, to appoint a community garda? I fear the examination will not allow this to happen. Does she accept that there must be a way of requiring gardaí from other divisions and districts, apart from the one that both she and I represent, to share the responsibility for escorting prisoners to places as far away as Cork and Tipperary? This is a national and not just a local problem which needs to be addressed at national level and she is the person who can do so.
I remind the Deputy that the deployment of gardaí is a matter for the Garda Commissioner. Responsibility for providing escorts has always been assigned to the Garda Síochána. As I understand it, gardaí in the district in which the place of detention is located — in this instance, Oberstown House and Trinity House in the Fingal area — are responsible for providing escorts.
The point the Deputy made is valid, the offenders serving time in Oberstown House and Trinity House come from all over the country. I, too, hope the time will come when gardaí from Kerry, Cork, Dublin south east, Kildare, Longford or Westmeath will be made available to escort young people to court or wherever they need to be escorted. As things stand, it falls on gardaí in the district in which the place of detention is located to perform this duty in the same way as responsibility for the protection of former Taoisigh falls on gardaí in the district in which the person concerned lives. No extra gardaí are assigned to that district.
I have spoken to the local divisional officer about the matter and understand that gardaí from the other villages in north County Dublin now share this responsibility. This provides some relief for the people of Lusk who were worried that the garda assigned to the area during the day would be reassigned to escort duties. I cannot give any grounds for great optimism as it will still be necessary for gardaí to escort prisoners to court. We do not have a separate police force to perform this task.
Does the Minister agree that it is a waste of Garda time to escort a 12 or 14 year-old child to and from a district court from Lusk or anywhere else? Does she consider that the suggestion she made — if I may use the indelicate term — on the hoof that it would be great if gardaí from Kerry could be asked to perform this task is rather foolish since it would involve four journeys, the journey to Lusk to collect the child to bring him to the District Court in Tralee, the journey back to Lusk in the evening and the journey home to Kerry?
I was responding to Deputy Sargent's suggestion that the responsibility for escort duties should be shared because the youths in Oberstown House and Trinity House do not come from Fingal only, but from all over the country. As Deputy Sargent will be aware, extra gardaí were assigned to the Balbriggan district recently. I hope a few more will be assigned in time to come as the area continues to expand. That should lead to an improvement in the position.
Under the law a young person has to be escorted to court by the gardaí. This is not necessarily a waste of their time as very often these young people try to escape. Some have succeeded in doing so. They, therefore, need to be protected in being brought to and from court. This is a matter at which we can look again when dealing with the juvenile justice Bill. These two centres which deal with children under 16 years of age will fall into the remit of the Department of Education.
The Minister did not answer the first part of my question which was related to community policing. Will she give further consideration to sanctioning a realistic increase, not one or two — no more than anybody else, I do not want to see scarce Garda resources wasted — in Garda strength in the areas where gardaí are required to perform escort duties? It is a national problem and should be addressed as such.
Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to say I will deploy an extra ten gardaí in my constituency. However, it is a matter for the Garda Commissioner to deploy gardaí as he thinks fit. I cannot dictate to the Commissioner and tell him to deploy an extra eight or ten gardaí in the Balbriggan district. I can ask him to take into consideration that gardaí are taken off other duties to carry out this function when making such decisions so that if a place of detention is located in a particular area it does not suffer a reduction in Garda strength. I have spoken to the Commissioner about this.
The Minister stated that Garda deployment was a matter for the Commissioner. Will she intervene in the case of the garda who was sent home from Cyprus and allow him resume duty there?
All Garda matters, including deployment, are ones for the Garda Commissioner and the Deputy can contact him about this issue.
Does the Minister accept that the garda has been asked to pay a very heavy price for an off-the-cuff remark?
The Deputy should talk to the Commissioner.
The Minister stated that Garda deployment was not a matter for her but the numbers in the force are clearly a matter for her. The president of the AGSI stated yesterday that the Garda force was 700 below its traditional strength. Does the Minister intend to increase the numbers?
If the Deputy had been at the function last night, which I addressed, he would know I responded to that inaccurate information given by the president of AGSI. He did not compare like with like. In the middle 1980s the number of young gardaí training in Templemore was included in the overall Garda number. That is no longer the case. The 355 gardaí in Templemore are not included. The difference in numbers is far less than the 700 mentioned by the president and I discussed the matter with him after the dinner.
