I ask Deputy Noel Grealish to move the motion, and I thank him for his dramatic entrance.
An Garda Síochána: Motion [Private Members]
I move:
That Dáil Éireann:
acknowledges that:
— it is 100 years since the foundation of An Garda Síochána;
— the mission of An Garda Síochána is "Keeping People Safe";
— An Garda Síochána play a crucial role in our communities, ensuring safety, maintaining law and order, upholding the principles of justice and fostering community well-being;
— through the promotion of crime prevention and visible policing the Gardaí foster a sense of security, especially among the most vulnerable in our communities;
— our communities rely on the Gardaí to respond to emergency calls, patrol our neighbourhoods, prevent and investigate crimes;
— their dedication, professionalism, and commitment to serving the community are invaluable in creating a safe and secure environment for all and deterring criminal activities; and
— to carry out their mission, the Gardaí must have the resources and leadership to do so;
recognises that:
— morale within the force is declining and is presently at an all-time low;
— members of the Garda Representative Association, which represents rank and file Gardaí, overwhelmingly voted no confidence in the force’s most senior officer, the Garda Commissioner, by 98.7 per cent;
— An Garda Síochána is experiencing significant recruitment and retention issues;
— as of July 2023, there were 13,717 members of An Garda Síochána, and this number has continuously declined since 2018;
— recent departures from Garda units through retirement and promotion are not being replaced, resulting in some regional and local units becoming unsustainable;
— members of An Garda Síochána have highlighted issues such as unfriendly family work practices, travel distances to work, rostering issues, and the lack of transfers;
— young members within the force are resigning due to low pay and untenable work patterns;
— the mandatory retirement age of 60 years is a drain on experience within An Garda Síochána;
— statistics from the Central Statistics Office show an increase in attempts/threats to murder, assaults, harassment, robbery, theft and related offences in Quarter 1 2023 in comparison to the previous year; and
— the continuation of these issues within the force will have a detrimental impact on the whole of society; and
calls on the Government to:
— provide a mandatory custodial sentence for the criminal action of purposefully causing injury to a Garda;
— conduct an immediate review of the current Garda Síochána force with the engagement of all stakeholders, to be chaired by An Taoiseach and make recommendations within 12 weeks;
— increase the number of Gardaí in the State to 16,000 by 2028;
— ensure that there is a baseline per capita Garda figure in each county to ensure that certain areas in the State are not under policed;
— increase the number of Gardaí on the beat and the number of community Gardaí;
— review the areas where Garda stations have been closed and where Garda stations have become part-time to identify which locations need an increased Garda presence;
— amend the mandatory retirement age of 60 years;
— increase the entry level pay to 80 per cent of Garda pay, as the current remuneration rates are very low and many new recruits find it difficult to manage financially;
— abandon and cease the implementation of all previous rostering regimes until a review is completed;
— provide funding for additional and ongoing face-to-face psychological support for Gardaí after traumatic incidents or assaults;
— provide additional and ongoing further training and support; and
— provide additional resources and technologies in order for Gardaí to carry out their work safely.
I thank my colleagues for agreeing to move such an important motion. I also thank Cáit Nic Amhlaoibh, the Regional Group's administrator, for the excellent work she has done in putting it together. I welcome the Minister for Justice, Deputy McEntee, to the Chamber. We appreciate her attendance.
It a matter of great concern that the Garda workforce is in decline rather than growing in numbers to meet the increasingly complex demands being put on the force. This has come about due to a combination of increasing numbers of resignations and age-related retirements along with a slower than predicted intake into the ranks through the Garda College. Recruitment is not keeping up with natural wastage or, more accurately, an accelerating reduction in numbers. Garda numbers have been falling month by month for a considerable period. The result is greater pressure on gardaí who continue to do their best to protect the citizens of the State in the face of huge challenges. It has contributed greatly to a crisis of low morale within the force. This is reflected in the recent overwhelming vote of no confidence in the Garda Commissioner by rank-and-file officers.
To take the Galway division as an example, the chief superintendent has stated he is dealing with a serious shortfall in manpower, to the extent that he is down 16 sergeants and 35 uniformed gardaí on what is required to properly police the Galway division. That is a shortfall of 51 in total at a time of enormous pressure on already stretched resources as a result of a well-publicised incident in Galway city in recent times, which every Member of the House will be well aware of. Salthill Garda station has seen its manpower levels fall from 61 at the end of 2017 to just 33 currently. This has prompted concerns that the station may be substantially downgraded. I am seeking a commitment from the Minister, the Government and the Garda Commissioner that it will not be further downgraded.
In the same period of less than six years, the combined number of gardaí of all ranks has dropped by 25% overall in the three city stations of Salthill, Mill Street and Murroe. This is a reduction of 70 personnel to today's total of 206. While there are other personnel based at the north-west regional headquarters in Murroe, these are largely involved in duties covering the huge Garda region, comprising ten counties in the west, north-west and Border areas. Elsewhere in the Galway division, we have seen a widespread drop in Garda manpower levels. Of the 40 stations operating in 2017, a total of 17 have seen a fall in numbers and numbers in a further 16 have remained at the same levels as they were six years ago. However, the vast majority of these are stations with a single garda in place. I am sure Galway is not an exception. There is a serious shortfall nationally that must be urgently addressed. Gardaí are under huge stress and pressure. If we do not give them the support they need, how can we expect them to maintain law and order generally, much less quell the kind of violence we have seen recently in Galway and Dublin city centres and other areas. Will the Minister give An Garda Síochána the support and resources it badly needs?
We have arrived at a situation with An Garda Síochána that few would ever have envisaged. As an organisation that has always been respected and trusted, the rapid decline in relationships between rank-and-file members and management is disturbing. The situation is becoming increasingly unsettled as frustrations continue to escalate. There are serious problems and a range of fundamental issues that need to be settled. The Garda Representative Association, GRA, has made valid points and legitimate and recent requests.
Gardaí are the men and women who have dedicated their lives to upholding law and order throughout the country. We rely on them each day to protect our communities and properties. They are asking to be heard and to have their opinions heeded. They want the Commissioner to listen to the realities on the ground. They want him to hear their front-line experiences which would enlighten a proper and effective work structure. This unseemly row is damaging to the public perception of the force and holds danger for the public interest. Emotion is seldom conducive to securing resolution in any dispute. This current division could have been avoided. An independent and properly mediated review of An Garda Síochána operations, with the engagement of all stakeholders, should have been made a priority. It should have taken place when the first cracks began to appear. We now have a standoff which must be resolved. Further delay risks provoking an already delicate situation that could prevent a workable compromise. Key to this resolution will be agreement on the four-unit structure which is the issue that the public are now familiar with. However, of equal importance is the need to address the structural and management deficiencies in the current policing model.
Morale in the force is at an all-time low. This is made evident by the issue of recruitment and retention numbers. In 2019, a decision was taken to reduce the intake of recruits by 200 members. As a result of Covid, the Garda Training College closed the following year and alternative options to continue with recruitment were slow to emerge. In 2022, the force was promised 800 recruits but had fewer than 300. In 2023, we were promised 1,000 recruits but indications are that this number will not be achieved, with current predictions being optimistically placed at 800, at best. It also appears that there will not be the capacity to recruit 1,000 members in 2024 as a result of the late intake this year.
No moves have been made to formalise the increase in the Garda training allowance of €184 per week, which is a derisory sum. Poor pension entitlements for new recruits since 2013 are also a determining factor for anyone considering a career in the force. The Government must realise that pay and terms and conditions for gardaí are not adequate and will not attract new recruits. This is the principal reason that a once sought-after career is now overlooked by young men and women who no longer see it as a viable choice.
Throughout the 1990s, we had a consistently large number of recruits who are now edging towards retirement eligibility. With the current recruitment trends, we will not have sufficient numbers to replace them. The number of resignations this year is heading towards 150, with 96 recorded to date. Last year, there were 108. Figures from before 2018 show an average of 45 retirements annually. Many serving members I have spoken to tell me they cannot wait to get out. Decreasing recruitment and increasing retirements paint a very concerning picture for the future. Confidence and optimism within the Garda are at their lowest ebb since the foundation of the force. The problems go far deeper than rostering. An Garda Síochána is at a crucial crossroads. Urgent discussions and negotiations must commence to stabilise and restore a vital institution of the State.
While this motion encapsulates the numerous issues raised by members, it would be remiss of me to ignore the elephant in the room. The roster issue is ongoing, there is an impasse in the negotiations, the Minister of Justice will not get involved and the GRA is being advised to withdraw voluntary overtime on five Tuesdays in October. These dates include Hallowe'en and budget day. This is concerning for the public. There needs to be negotiation and resolution immediately.
The issue for members is that they are not being listened to and there are no negotiations. In November 2022, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris advised that there were insufficient resources to revert to the Westmanstown roster. A year later, issues around Garda visibility and the cost of the current roster became apparent. The vice president of the GRA indicated that Garda numbers had declined by 800 members, yet the Commissioner has decided to return to the roster. The roster reform project report found that this roster is limited, inflexible and results in an immediate 20% reduction of resources per Garda unit, leading to ineffective supervision and management. Where is the sense in dismantling essential policing units in order to increase visibility? This does not get to the root of the issue. It is like robbing Peter to pay Paul.
At a meeting of the Policing Authority last week, it was highlighted that, as of 31 August, 219 Garda members had retired in 2023 after hitting the mandatory retirement age of 60 years and 95 members had resigned.
While I acknowledge that an increase in criminal offences in quarter 1 of 2023 requires heightening Garda visibility, a chronic shortage of resources, technology and confidence in leadership directly impacts the force's ability to carry out this role. The roster dispute is only highlighting the extent of the resource shortages and a potential for further reduction in numbers if no negotiations lead to further resignations. On top of this, 112 members and six Garda staff are currently suspended. Bearing in mind that these suspended members are still counted in the overall manpower, this these figures highlight that resources are being embellished and the workload of members is increasing.
This all funnels down to recruitment and retention being the biggest issues. Who wants to work in an organisation where your queries are not listened to? Who wants to work in an environment where there is poor pay, increased workload, poor pension schemes, poor working hours and a risk to life due to a lack of resources? This all results in morale being on the floor.
My colleagues in the Regional Group and I are pushing for an immediate review of the current Garda force, with the engagement of all stakeholders, to be chaired by An Taoiseach. Recommendations must be made within 12 weeks to ensure there is a resolution for all involved. We must look at the push and pull factors which influence recruitment, reduce any barriers for lateral entry into the force and continue the intensive outreach to attract members to the force. I am not a HR professional but it is almost smarter and more cost efficient to pay better wages, increase flexibility for employees and to do whatever we need to keep the talent on board than to search for replacements. Retention is far easier than recruitment. Like any other organisation, Garda members are open about what they want and need. They want respect for their lives outside of work. They want their contributions to be valued.
The review needs to immediately address declining morale within the force and the issues around retention. It needs also to address the mandatory retirement age of 60, recruitment, transfers, rostering, entry-level pay levels and the need to improve work practices. Gardaí need to be treated as valuable professionals rather than units of production. I thank the Minister, Deputy McEntee, for attending the House for the motion.
Táim an-bhuíoch agus sásta as a bheith anseo inniu chun labhairt faoin ábhar tábhachtach seo. Is é an t-ábhar is tábhachtaí faoi láthair, nó in Éirinn ar aon nós.
I will begin by endorsing the views already expressed by my good colleagues. I associate myself with their remarks. I acknowledge the very proud history of the Garda. For the past 100 years, its members have watched over the country through times of war and peace, boom and bust and thick and thin. By and large, they have served the country very well. One only needs to look at the roll of honour and see the number of gardaí who have been killed in the line of duty and the number of recipients of the Walter Scott Medal for Valour to know why the vast majority of right-minded Irish people accept and support the Garda. That said, the Government and the entire Parliament need to be more supportive of our force.
I will make a few comments that the Minister might be willing to take on board. I echo the sentiments of Deputy Lowry in relation to retention and recruitment. I would always put retention before recruitment because retention is more important. The age limit at which people can join the force is too low. We can go above 35 years of age. The age of mandatory retirement is also too low. We can go above 60 years of age. I would be interested to know what the international comparisons are for other police forces across the world. We could do something with that perspective.
On remuneration, pay restoration is an accepted principle and we have almost achieved restoration from the time of the financial crash. However, we can go further. We should also be considering pension restoration, particularly for front-line uniformed service. The Minister might engage with her Cabinet colleagues on that point, particularly with the budget next week.
There should be 1,500 gardaí in the Garda Reserve but there are only 300. We are led to believe that a recruitment drive will be happening soon and we are supportive of that principle. With the help of the Garda Reserve, rural Garda stations could be open more often to provide the reassuring and visible presence that is so important from a policing perspective.
We must also consider psychological and counselling supports. We know that our gardaí face harrowing scenes every day of the week, from road traffic accidents to house fires to people self-harming or worse. I am not convinced that we have the appropriate support mechanisms in place for our gardaí. Perhaps the Minister will reassure the House that those supports are in place.
PSNI officers coming into the Garda has been a small bone of contention. It is not the principle that is at issue but the fact that it all appears to be one-way traffic. Approximately four or five senior PSNI officers are now in the Garda but I do not know of any member of the Garda who is serving at a high level in the PSNI. Perhaps the Minister might encourage two-way traffic from that point of view. Parity is important. If we are looking towards reunification of the island and perhaps an amalgamation of the two police forces, we should be looking at the early stages of that as soon as possible.
There is also a bone of contention around the suspension policy of the Garda. We completely accept that the Garda should have operational independence and as much autonomy as possible. However, there is something wrong when over 100 members of the Garda are currently suspended pending review. We have no problem with suspension in principle but if someone has to be suspended, the investigation should be swift and the member in question reinstated as soon as possible. Cases such as the one in Limerick where up to five gardaí have been suspended for three years at this stage should never happen.
We are grateful for the service and sacrifices of the Garda over the past 100 years. It is important that this Parliament provide the support necessary for the Garda to look after us for the next 100 years.
Last week, I held a public meeting in Navan on the issue of crime and antisocial behaviour. It was a very well-attended meeting. There was a full house with only standing room available. I have been the chair of the Safer Meath Campaign for the past five years and I am absolutely shocked at what I heard at that meeting. Women who work in shops in the towns said they were being threatened with rape and sexual assault if they went to the Garda to report the thefts and crimes happening in their shops. Many of them are being dropped off at the shops simply because they do not feel safe walking to those shops early in the morning. The same applies in the evening when they are picked up. Windows of pubs are being smashed in the middle of Sunday afternoons. Drugs are being sold openly and taken on the streets and town squares.
One of the scariest things I noticed at the meeting was that the majority of people who were the victims of crimes in County Meath over the period in question said they did not have the confidence to go to the Garda in the first place or that if the Garda knew about the crime, they did not have the confidence to prosecute, stand in a courtroom and give evidence against the people who were doing the damage to them. I have never heard such a pervasive level of fear among citizens in Meath. People feel they are unable in any way to tackle the criminals who are coming against them, as such. Attendees at the meeting felt that a cohort of these criminals simply feel they have immunity from prosecution. These offenders know they are never going to see a custodial sentence. Many of them feel they have immunity even when attacking gardaí because they feel they will never see a custodial sentence. Some people with multiple convictions, perhaps 50, 60 or 70 in total, are doing untold damage. That very small cohort is doing untold damage in the county.
It is clear that we have reached and passed a dangerous tipping point in respect of crime and antisocial behaviour in this country. Under this Government, this country is becoming a more violent and dangerous place. That is not hyperbole because the facts speak to it. Instances of rape have doubled in the past 15 years. Sexual assaults have doubled in the past ten years. The murder rate is soaring. It has doubled since last year. It is an incredible situation and people in many towns and villages are very fearful at the moment.
This is not happening by accident. We have one of the smallest police forces per capita in the European Union. The Minister's county has the lowest Garda force per capita in the whole of the State. It is half the average number of gardaí per capita. Every year that Deputy McEntee has been the Minister for Justice, the number of gardaí in this State has fallen. That is a serious record for any Minister for Justice to hold. Hundreds of gardaí are attacked with impunity every year. Gardaí are in fear and terrified, as are their families, because of the work they are doing. Garda welfare is a key element of what is wrong and what is happening in this scenario.
In addition, hundreds of gardaí are resigning or retiring every year. The number of people applying to the Garda College in Templemore has collapsed. There has also been a collapse in morale. I honestly believe this Government has been distracted from this key bread-and-butter issue over the past year. It has been distracted by the culture wars.
I urge the Minister to focus on this issue and ensure that gardaí have proper terms, conditions and pay and are protected and that there is a threat of a custodial sentence for criminals if they injure gardaí in the future. We need to have the backs of gardaí if they are to have the backs of citizens in our towns and villages.
I move amendment No. 1:
To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:
"acknowledges that:
— it is over 100 years since the foundation of An Garda Síochána;
— the mission of An Garda Síochána is 'Keeping People Safe';
— An Garda Síochána play a crucial role in our communities, building stronger, safer communities, maintaining law and order, upholding the principles of justice and fostering community well-being;
— through the promotion of crime prevention and visible policing, the Gardaí foster a sense of security, especially among the most vulnerable in our communities;
— our communities rely on the Gardaí to respond to emergency calls, patrol our neighbourhoods, prevent and investigate crimes;
— the dedication, professionalism, and commitment of the Gardaí to serving the community is invaluable in creating a safe and secure environment for all and deterring criminal activities; and
— to carry out their mission, the Government has ensured in successive Budgets that An Garda Síochána have the resources and leadership to do so;
recognises:
— that following the forced closure of the Garda College during the Covid-19 pandemic, Garda recruitment is now accelerating with each new class group entering the Templemore campus;
— that 100 new Gardaí have attested so far this year, and that another 470 are in active training, with two more classes due into Templemore in October and December;
— the progress being made towards reaching the Government's target of 15,000 members of An Garda Síochána and 4,000 civilian Garda staff;
— the major increase in investment in annual funding through Budget 2023, which provided a total allocation of €2.4 billion, an increase of €340 million in annual funding;
— the new Garda Reserve campaign which will be launched soon, to further support increased policing visibility in our communities;
— the roll-out of Local Community Safety Partnerships (LCSP) and the implementation of the Rural Safety Plan;
— the implementation by An Garda Síochána of the new Community Policing Model;
— that the introduction of Community Policing Areas (CPAs), which will be created nationwide with a dedicated Community Garda given responsibility for each new CPA, will improve Garda visibility;
— the recent legislative changes to provide access to Garda members to the industrial relations machinery of the State, including the Workplace Relations Commission and the Labour Court; and
— legislation brought forward before the summer recess to increase the maximum sentence for assaulting a member of An Garda Síochána and other emergency workers, from seven to 12 years; and
calls on the Government to:
— continue to support the work being done by An Garda Síochána with international partners to deal with organised crime gangs and the related issue of drugs in our communities;
— bring forward the Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill 2023, currently before the Houses, which will introduce a new framework for policing, security and community safety in Ireland as recommended by the Commission on the Future of Policing;
— continue to provide supports and initiatives to strengthen wellbeing and job satisfaction of the members and staff of An Garda Síochána; and
— bring forward the Garda Síochána (Recording Devices) Bill 2022, to allow for the use of bodycams which will support Gardaí in tackling crime and anti-social behaviour.".
I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle and colleagues for raising what I know is an important matter for all of us. I am also grateful for the opportunity to outline how we are making progress in building stronger and safer communities. As Minister, I am determined to keep people safe. That has always been front and centre of everything I do. I assure the House that I am not distracted in any way from that task but there are challenges and always will be challenges; of that I have no doubt. There is always more we can do. Our communities want more gardaí, as do I. We all agree that we want the same thing.
Investment in An Garda Síochána across the justice sector is increasing and is at the highest level ever. Budget 2023 brought An Garda Síochána’s total allocation to €2.14 billion. The increase in €340 million in annual funding in the past three years alone is supporting An Garda Síochána in the excellent work it is doing in many areas.
On gangland crime, we have seen significant changes and work being done on the ground. There is ongoing success in seizing drugs being smuggled into our country. Last week, we had the largest ever such seizure, led by An Garda Síochána. We are building international coalitions to tackle these organised crime gangs which operate with little respect for borders or people. Gangland murders are falling dramatically but, unfortunately, we have seen an increase in homicides. These killings are driven largely by domestic abuse, which is a matter we have to address and are addressing. We are making progress in tackling this heinous epidemic through our zero tolerance plan. We have introduced tougher laws and stronger sentences and we are developing new refuges and accommodation. We are building long-term structures to tackle domestic, sexual and gender-based violence and, most important, to challenge and change the attitudes that underpin it and to help victims. We have just advertised for the position of the CEO of a new domestic violence agency which will be up and running early in the new year. This is to ensure we have structures in place so that no matter who the Minister is, who is in government or who is serving in the Oireachtas, this will be long-term reform to tackle what is a deep-rooted problem in our society.
Nobody knows better than the local community what needs to be done to improve community safety, whether it is Navan, Galway or any of the towns or villages we represent . Community safety partnerships are the way in which we will respond to that. These partnerships acknowledge that increasing community safety is not just the responsibility of An Garda Síochána. We all acknowledge that too much has fallen on its members' shoulders for many years now. It requires many State agencies, organisations and elected representatives to come together, whether that is Tusla, local businesses, education providers, enterprise workers, youth services working together with local communities or elected representatives. It means bringing everyone around the table, identifying what the issues are within each county and community and drawing up individual plans. From next year, every area will have a community safety partnership to draw up its own community safety plan. Ahead of the national roll-out, we have rolled out three pilot areas, in the north inner city of Dublin, Longford and Waterford, to ensure we have geographical and regional spread and different sizes of counties.
When I commenced the community safety partnership pilots, the goal was very simple. We want to empower communities to have a say in community safety. The Dublin north inner city local community safety plan, which was published just this month, is a perfect example of this fresh approach. Some of the actions in this publication are already being worked on and have already been funded in certain ways. There are recommendations around Garda presence, enhanced youth services, businesses taking initiatives such as the new community safety wardens, and local authorities playing their part. Simple things such as street lighting, cleaning, shop fronts are being addressed as part of one plan being rolled out collectively. It will not be perfect but, again, this is a long-term plan which is often trying to deal with deep-rooted problems.
Along with the Minister of State, Deputy James Browne, I am fully committed to further extending our network of youth diversion programmes. This is of huge importance when dealing with antisocial behaviour and issues that arise throughout the country. These programmes do highly valuable work and operate under the youth justice strategy. Funding for this strategy alone has increased by 67% just in the past three years. Some €30 million is supporting these projects, which means that by the end of this year, every single part of the country will have cover. We are now trying to ensure there is weekend cover and start to support hard-to-reach children and even children who are younger than those we are dealing with now. It is unfortunately a fact that we need to engage with much younger people and create diversion programmes for them. I will be in the Seanad later today progressing the Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill 2023. This legislation is what underpins the partnerships nationally but a physical presence is also central to community safety.
As I said, I want more gardaí, as we all do. It is an unfortunate fact, however, that we had to close the Garda College when the Covid pandemic struck. People may like to ignore that fact and say Garda numbers have dropped in the past three years but the Garda College was closed and with no college, we could not produce Garda recruits. My party was proud to reopen the college previously when it had closed and we are now building momentum in recruitment. Almost 500 people completed or began training last year. After the Covid enforced pause, members in Templemore continue to increase. We have attestations every three months. The intake of new recruits was 135 in February, 154 in May and 174 in July. We will have another group starting again in October. When we look at the overall number for this year, we will have 100 new Garda members attested, 470 will be in active training and two more classes are due in Templemore in October and December.
While we knew Garda numbers would drop lower than we would like, they are stabilising and I have every confidence that they will also start to increase. As Deputies have alluded to, plans are in train to allow for a new recruitment campaign for the Garda Reserve. This will, in turn, help to increase visibility and support gardaí in the work they are doing on the ground. I assure the House that we are examining all options with regard to recruitment and retention. This means increasing the entry age at which members can join. I hope to be able to make a decision on that very shortly with the Garda Commissioner. We are engaging with regard to the retirement age and looking at other measures as well. Obviously, budget discussions are ongoing, as will become clear next week.
On the structure itself, Members alluded to significant ongoing reform of the Garda. There has been a huge number of changes and I would be the first to acknowledge that many changes have come in a very short space of time. That is not easy and in itself puts pressure on members. I thank members of An Garda Síochána for the way in which they have responded to and are implementing this reform. They also give feedback and I have to stress that there is a continuous engagement from senior management with members to understand how these changes can be adapted and amended and how they can work better. Whether it is the operating model or the new online systems, changes have taken place. I appreciate more may be needed and I have no doubt that, where required, changes will continue to take place.
On the operating model, one of the main benefits of the new model is that it will put in place community policing teams across the country. All of us want to know who the local community garda is in order that they have their number, can pick up the phone and deal with him or her with regard to antisocial behaviour, crime prevention, community safety or whatever else. People have different reasons for wanting to contact a garda. Each community garda will have responsibility to be highly visible and active, to engage with local businesses and communities and also to deal with local groups. They will be at the front line of a reformed service which has community policing at its core.
There has been a lot of feedback indicating that this new structure is not working. Reform and change take time, particularly when a global pandemic occurs in the middle of it. That, in turn, affects numbers. When I ask individual gardaí whether, if we had more gardaí or the numbers we thought we would have prior to Covid-19, the model would work better, many of them say "Yes". We need to ensure we continue to listen, to adapt and change when change is needed and to recruit as quickly as we can. Many people very much want to join An Garda Síochána. Perhaps there is a view that that is not the case but it absolutely is the case that thousands are still applying under the recruitment campaigns and we will hold another recruitment campaign early in the new year.
On the welfare of Garda members, which Deputies also mentioned, this is something I take very seriously in every meeting I have with any of the representative organisations. They raise the issue and I speak to them about it. I ask what more I can do and what funding I can provide to ensure supports and resources are available to them. Deputy Berry is right that gardaí deal with horrific situations and have to respond to very difficult scenarios. It is important we put measures in place to support them. That is why we enacted legislation before the summer to increase the maximum sentence for someone who assaults a member of An Garda Síochána.
That is why we are bringing in body-worn cameras. I am pleased that legislation is passing through the Seanad at the moment to make sure they are provided and afforded with the same protections when they go about their work. That Bill will also allow for further community CCTV which assists them in doing their work. It also makes sure we have funding for things such as the keeping our people supported, KOPS, resource, an online app that supports them directly, that we support their health, well-being and wellness and access to support, wellness days and that we do even more. That is an absolute priority for me at all times.
Briefly on the roster, I absolutely appreciate it is important for members, for their work-life balance and for the same reason that our work is important to us and the way in which we balance it with our family and social lives. However, it is also important that the Commissioner is able to put in place a roster that fits the needs of the people of the day. This will only be resolved by people talking and by sitting down around the table. I know I am saying that consistently but that is how this kind of scenario gets resolved. Further meetings are happening today and tomorrow between the Commissioner and the four associations. I have no doubt but that there will be a solution and a resolution found to what is a really important issue for everyone involved.
I thank the Members for putting down this motion. It is really important that we continue to invest in An Garda Síochána and to support them because gardaí have an extremely difficult job and I think we all want to support them in whatever way we can.
My colleagues have spoken of An Garda Síochána over the last 100 years and the standard it has set and how we have to show respect for every garda that puts on a uniform every day of the week. They are family people at the end of the day.
The Minister spoke about rapid changes that are happening within the force but there is a problem on the ground. Should the Minister come to my constituency or into any of our towns, there is absolutely no garda visible on the beat. That is the biggest problem, as people ask where are the guards. You could ring the Garda station and be told they will be up in a half an hour because the Garda car has gone out. This is the reality of what is happening on the ground. Rural houses are being robbed and houses in towns are being robbed and there is no consequence, other than for the family owners of the houses. These are people whose houses are invaded in broad daylight. Everybody arrives afterwards and everybody goes away but there are very few prosecutions for that. Among the public there is an issue of confidence about how policing is being done. As a community worker, I would say that the Garda, as an organisation, has let down communities with the community alert. Communities pay for this system, which is supposed to notify them of abnormal activities. The text alerts go out from An Garda Síochána. Changes were made a few years ago and it was supposed to be operating centrally. There is nobody who can be contacted to find out why, in the area I live in, no text alert has come out to us over two years at a time when about 25 houses in the community were robbed. That is a let down for people. We can talk all we like about policies and frameworks or whatever but this is key to what is happening on the ground. This is not to get at the Minister but I am telling her the reality. People say there is no point in ringing the gardaí. They ring me and tell me that something has happened to them and when I ask them whether they have rung the Garda, they tell me there is no point in doing that. That is where we are at. We are at a very low ebb in public confidence in policing. As a Deputy said earlier, we have passed a tipping point. We are going to lose a lot of ground if we do not act immediately.
Look at Galway city where people were out fighting on the streets and it was filmed and put online. People were out with cars trying to knock down other people. It sets a tone that people can do whatever they want whenever they want. People were arrested for it but that is not the point. It is anywhere you go. There was a lot of talk of it happening in Dublin and the Minister provided overtime funding in Dublin. I challenge her to provide overtime to every division to ensure that policing can be done while we are trying to build the numbers.
On recruitment of young gardaí, it is not attractive. Young people can go into a factory and get a good job. They can be educated and progress up through the farm industry a hell of a lot better than if they go into the Garda. That is what is happening. Look at the initial payments they get. Another downside for them is that after a new garda comes out of Templemore, they are invariably sent to Dublin or another place a long way from home. It is very costly and not affordable so they will not do it. I know people who have gone into Templemore and come out and did not go any further. We need to make sure we respect those gardaí we have by giving them all the tools they need.
I cannot get over why people have to retire at 60 years of age. They are a huge asset. If they want to work on until they are 65 years, then we should take their experience as an asset to help police this country. We should not have a cut-off point.
I will leave it there. Other colleagues have to speak. This is not a motion for the sake of it. We need to do something urgently.
Let us go back to where this all started. The confidence the Minister expressed in the Commissioner may be somewhat misguided but that will be determined by her. Go back to 2018. The Commissioner, Drew Harris, decided he did not need 800 recruits a year. He said he would do with 600, going against what was Government policy and the Department. It was endorsed and signed off by the then Minister, Deputy Flanagan. We now see, five years later, how we are paying the price for that. Strike one: we do not need 800 new gardaí. This time last year, Drew Harris said we could not reintroduce the old working time roster, namely, the Westmanstown roster, because we did not have the resources. It just was not possible. Did the Minister, Deputy McEntee, as line Minister tell him he should retract that and pursue re-implementation of that roster over and above the Covid roster? Something changed and nobody is stupid. Somebody needs to explain what changed his mind. The Taoiseach came in here and told us there is funding for 1,000 gardaí but saying that does not mean we are going to get them. Every year, we see budgets delivered as spin but we never get the delivery of things like homecare support packages. That is something with millions of euro thrown at it and no personnel to deliver it. We are now seeing the same thing in An Garda Síochána. The Minister is here trying to tell us that community policing is the way forward. I live in a constituency where we have pulled gardaí from community policing in preparation for the introduction of the old roster on 6 November and the Minister is trying to tell me that is not happening. Her colleague, Senator Ward, tried to tell me that on Virgin Media television last night and that my figures were incorrect. My figures match the Minister’s today but when researching figures, I got dizzy yesterday seeing who was saying what. The Taoiseach gives one figure, the Tánaiste another. The Minister, who is line Minister, says one thing but the Minister of State, Deputy James Browne says another. We have no idea of how many gardaí but between the Taoiseach’s statement in November and the Minister’s statement in May, according to the Official Report, we have lost 256 gardaí somewhere in the system. Between retirees and the loss of those gardaí, we will have no new recruits. We will have trained 633 by Christmas but there will be no additional members. They will just replace those who are leaving, suspended and those retiring. That is not trust and confidence for the public to go forward.
The gun has been put on the table by the current Commissioner. The Minister is his boss. She should not try to tell the public that this is an arms-length issue and she has no part to play.
As a matter of fact, this is probably going to be the most serious decision of the Minister's career and the guns need to be taken off the table. If the Minister is so confident that talks will take place tomorrow with those guns on the table put there by Drew Harris - he is a CEO, in effect. He is paid in excess of €270,000 per annum. In 2018 when he wanted to save money by cutting down the number of gardaí, he should have started with that salary. It is far too much money for someone who seems to be so inept. Three strikes, he should be out. He is on his third and the Minister is the boss. I do not know when she is going to make the decision but in the whole of my constituency of Wexford, from Gorey to Rosslare, New Ross, Enniscorthy and Wexford, people are very unhappy with the situation. They are very unhappy with what they perceive to be the lack of policing in the community. I can assure the Minister that we are fourth from the bottom when it comes to the number of police we have in Wexford. We have the most successful port in the country post Brexit and we have been given no resources. That rests with the Minister and the Department of Justice.
We have 174 recruits to come out of Templemore and for all of the Minister's talk this morning in her speech, none of them is aware where they are going to be stationed in the middle of the worst housing crisis this country has ever seen. The force has had over nine months to prepare, to tell them where they can go and where they might get rental accommodation. Is it any wonder people will not join the Garda? Sort it out.
Ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a thabhairt don Ghrúpa Réigiúnach. I thank the Minister for taking the questions. This is a timely motion. Sinn Féin representatives have raised matter in here repeatedly over the last year. I welcome the Minster's commitment to community policing and her comments on that. The community gardaí cannot be underestimated. The work they do in giving a sense of security in the community, particularly for older people when they see them around, is very important. Sometimes I think they are not appreciated even within the Garda. The community gardaí are the first people to be cut in communities when there is a shortage. I have had people in Killarney telling me there was a meeting organised and the garda was not available because the post had been removed. I welcome the Minister's commitment to that. I also want to compliment the Minister on the work she has done in respect of domestic violence over the past year or two. We were in the committee yesterday and the progress that has been made over the last two years is well done.
On the motion, one note of caution I would sound relates to the wording around an increase in crime. While there have been large increases in figures between quarter 2 of last year and the same period this year, they really show more consistency with pre-Covid numbers from 2019. The robberies, extortions, thefts and homicides are indeed up year on year but these offences are aligning closer to pre-pandemic levels. They are coming back to where they were. This comes against the background of increasingly difficult conditions for the Garda and long waits for court cases. There have been difficulties over the past three years. There is a huge increase in the number of prisoners in custody on remand for over one year. I think it has gone from about 4% to 12%. There are delays in the courts. The law term commenced yesterday. Maybe we should be making some progress on bringing the law term back to mid-September so that the backlog can be cleared.
One other note of caution in respect of the motion, while we are broadly supportive of it, is in respect of mandatory custodial sentences. The sentences are there already. I am not a great believer in mandatory sentences across the board. Some of them are unconstitutional, clearly. While it is easy to say, it is much more difficult to implement. Recruitment and retention of gardaí must be prioritised. We are awaiting the publication of the Garda Reserve regulations. We raised this during a recent meeting with Garda management and were advised that they are due very soon. We were told it would be in quarter 4 and we are just into quarter 4 now. The Minister said herself that it would be soon. All over the country but particularly in Dublin, people are waiting. The demand from Kerry to Louth to Donegal is to have more presence on the streets. It is very important that these regulations are published as soon as possible in order that the Garda can go and recruit reserves to keep the presence on the street that is demanded in the communities.
On the withdrawal of voluntary overtime, I have heard some alarming stories from front-line gardaí. I do not want to go into too many details but the practice of having to move various rank-and-file gardaí around who are already in place, due to the shortages, has left some gaps. They must be plugged as soon as possible. It must be borne in mind that voluntary overtime was papering over previous cracks. Gardaí withdrawing their support for this is merely a preview of what may result if the crisis is not resolved. One sergeant told a colleague of mine after increases to overtime to combat the issues we saw in Dublin city centre over the summer that overtime funding is not the problem, it is finding people to do it. Many units from the periphery of Dublin city centre are already at half the numbers they had pre-Covid. Taking them into the city centre is just causing stress and strain.
The current dispute over rostering is a consequence of the decline in numbers. The stress and strain placed on members has no doubt contributed to diminishing morale within An Garda Síochána. That level of frustration has led to the extraordinary motion which was put by the Garda Representative Association recently. Important reforms and improvements are difficult to implement in this context and recommendations of the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland, such as moving gardaí away from non-core duties, coroners' courts, court presenting and prisoner escorts, must be placed back on track as soon as possible. It is worth going through a few figures on Garda recruitment. The strength has declined and the three years could lead to a dip. I will pass over to my colleague because she is getting anxious.
Gabhaim buíochas don Ghrúpa Réigiúnach as an rún seo. There has to be a real concern about the morale in the Garda and their stated positions recently. I do not want to get parochial around this. I have spoken about the fact that we have such low Garda numbers in north Kildare before. I believe that we are at a critical stage. I welcome the fact that the Minister is here.
I come from a Garda family including my father, grandfather, several uncles and cousins. While my father retired from the force as a superintendent, he very much felt himself an ordinary member of An Garda Síochána. He was like a community garda before there was a title for it. I know about the loyalty of every member of the Garda to the job. I know their pride in the force and I know how difficult it must have been for the ordinary rank-and-file members individually and collectively to have taken this unprecedented move by a vote of a confidence in the Garda Commissioner. It should never have come to this, a Aire, but we reap what we sow. That line has now been crossed.
I say to the Minister for Justice that she really has to get her policing house in order quick smart. She needs to listen to what the members of the rank and file are saying. She needs to make sure that these men and women know that she is not just hearing them but is actually listening to them and valuing them in more than press releases or words. Nothing less will do. It is notable that the party that prides itself on being the party of law and order has overseen a decline in morale on such a deep and wide and scale, that it would come to the stage where the line has been crossed. The very people we depend on for the security of our State are left feeling unvalued and unprotected themselves. I have said to the Minister before that as a child I was never worried about my father going to work, apart from the day of the Dublin-Monaghan bombings and it was all hours when he came home. I saw a garda who had just recently retired saying he had to explain away to his kids bruises he had received while he was on the job. We have all seen the videos online of gardaí receiving vile abuse. Gardaí and their families should not have to bear the brunt of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael ripping up the social contract to the extent that vulnerable people have been easily led up the garden path by a nasty vile cohort - people who have been pushed to the margins by this Government feeling they have nothing left to lose and behaving so badly. The situation is appalling, unacceptable and dangerous.
I thank the Regional Group for bringing forward this really important motion, and the Minister for coming in and listening to the debate.
This Government claims it is committed to stronger and safer communities and that it is committed to a strengthened and well-resourced Garda force. Yet, after decades of Fine Gael at the helm of the Department of Justice I see little or no evidence to back up that claim.
In my constituency of Dublin Bay South, we have lost more than 100 gardaí in the past four years. That is a huge blow to inner city security. The loss of so many gardaí in the city centre is having a crippling effect on the policing of the city centre. Over the years I have watched the hard work of community gardaí in Pearse Street, Kevin Street and Ringsend. I have watched the strong relationship that community gardaí have fostered with communities and the positive impact it has had. Community gardaí are an immensely valuable resource in the inner city. Since 2020 Pearse Street Garda station has gone from having 28 community gardaí to just 20, but now because of the new roster Pearse Street is set to lose another one third of the community gardaí. This is going to be a devastating blow to community policing in the inner city. The superintendent in Pearse Street is very good. He is really engaged with the local community and he is very professional, as are all the gardaí that I meet, day in and day out, but he does not have the resources available to him that he requires. The Garda do not have the resources they need. It must be demoralising for gardaí, yet they go above and beyond for the local community day in and day out. We cannot tolerate the abandonment of local communities due to Fine Gael's neglect of An Garda Síochána for more than a decade.
Last night I got calls and images of violence and fires being lit just off Pearse Street. Communities are being terrorised by these gangs. The Garda does not have the resources it needs and the streets are not safe. They do not feel safe for people living in the south inner city. Increasingly, we hear accounts of people avoiding the city centre. It is not just the people visiting the city, it is the inner city community itself.
The recent TV show has highlighted the incredible difficult work the Garda do in our communities day in, day out. The work of supporting people with mental health issues is extremely important but it is a shocking indictment of this Government that they must do so without having recourse to a suite of mental health supports. That is the case in particular for Fine Gael, which has been in power for 12 years.
The work on domestic violence again has been immense and groundbreaking in terms of coercive control in particular in my area. I cannot commend enough the work of the community gardaí, despite their shockingly low numbers and the fact they have been systematically downgraded in their role. Despite the flowery words of senior guards that all guards are community police, they know that is absolute rubbish. Community policing has a specific role and a specific skill set. I am deeply worried about the number of gardaí attached to community policing in Dublin West based on the new rosters. Gardaí are telling me that they will be reduced from an already shockingly low number of nine to around five. That would render them virtually inoperable. I ask the Minister to give an assurance that they will be brought up to full strength and to state when that will happen.
I also wish to raise the snail's pace use of technology. I say "new technology" but it is virtually obsolete by the time the Garda decide to spend money. I will give the Minister a couple of examples. Why are gardaí still using pedal cycles when electric bikes are far more efficient? It is a bizarre situation. The second issue relates to drones. The Civil Defence, the Army and the navy all use drones but the Garda does not. I acknowledge the local Safer Blanchardstown community policing forum, which has made an application to the Minister for two drones to tackle the scourge of scramblers in communities throughout Dublin 15 and Dublin 7.
Police forces throughout Britain have established specialist police units to tackle the scourge of drug dealing and antisocial behaviour by people using scramblers. When there is another tragedy, when a young person dies on a scrambler or an innocent person, young or old, is killed or seriously injured, people in government will give tea and sympathy but they now have an opportunity to provide the Garda with the resources to deal with it. I urge the Minister to give funding to the Safer Blanchardstown forum to allow the pilot anti-scrambler drone programme to proceed and for the pilot scrambler unit to have legislation that protects its members while chasing these criminals.
The heading on the Meath Chronicle again this week is that Garda numbers in Meath have dropped. I am deeply concerned about the lack of gardaí in County Meath. It is a matter of huge concern that in the year 2023, we find ourselves grappling with a situation where there is only one garda for 712 people, compared with the national average of one garda per 371.
Gardaí are the backbone of our communities and the first line of defence against crime. They are the ones who keep our streets safe and our homes secure but how can they do this effectively when they are stretched so thin? How can they be expected to maintain law and order when they are outnumbered by such a large margin? The lack of gardaí in Meath is a problem that affects our sense of security, our faith in the system and our belief in justice. It is a problem that needs to be addressed immediately.
Gardaí are constantly pulled out of the smaller Garda stations and sent to the bigger Garda stations because of lack of resources while drug dealing, break-ins and antisocial behaviour is out of control. We need more gardaí on our streets, more resources for law enforcement and more support for communities. We need a comprehensive plan to recruit, train and deploy more gardaí in County Meath and we need it ASAP. We cannot afford to wait as the safety of people is at stake and the security of our communities is at risk. There have been reports of increased drug use, violence, vandalism and thefts in towns right across County Meath. The increase in antisocial behaviour is putting a strain on the local community. Residents and businesses are feeling unsafe and are worried about the impact the increase in crime is having on their area. The Garda is doing its best to address the issue but it is understaffed and under-resourced, with many members leaving the force due to rostering issues, poor pay and conditions. In the last couple of weeks, four gardaí quit the force in Kells alone.
I have constantly campaigned for a sub-Garda station for Johnstown, as 12,000 people now live there. We ask for a promise that the people of County Meath will not be left to fend for themselves, that they will not be left vulnerable to crime and feeling unsafe in their own homes. If one garda per 371 people is the national average, how can we expect the Garda in County Meath to operate with one garda per 712 people?
Let us take roads policing, for example. In 2009 there were 1,046 roads police. This year, in August 2023, there are 659, a reduction of 387 since 2009. In July and August this year 19 gardaí were gone from roads policing while in those same two months, 43 lives were lost on the roads. We ask the Minister to seriously address the lack of Garda numbers in our county of Meath.
The current impasse between the Garda and the Commissioner on the rota needs to be quickly resolved. Cool heads are required on both sides. The public are worried about their communities and safety. Confidence and morale within the force have reached an all-time low. Recruitment and retention issues are causing internal problems within the force with specialist units being broken up and personnel being assigned to regular units. The replacement of staff who retire is another situation that must be dealt with as soon as possible.
We ask that the doubling of the training allowance for trainee gardaí in Templemore would be considered in next week's budget. We also ask to increase the capacity for Garda training with a new hybrid training model that would increase the numbers who complete their training and attest as sworn members. We ask that consideration would be given to establishing a public transport policing unit, especially for the DART, Luas, Irish Rail and Dublin Bus services.
New figures published recently show that the Garda numbers in Wexford are the fifth lowest in the country, standing at 346 gardaí, representing one for every 488 citizens. This must be addressed immediately.
Before I close I would like to pay tribute to all gardaí who serve the force with pride and honour. I commend them on their call of duty, and especially for their recent significant confiscation of 2.2 tonnes of cocaine off the Wexford coast last week. Again, we call for more resources for the Garda Síochána, in particular in rural communities.
I raised with the Aire previously the proposed changes to the new Garda operating model in County Louth, whereby the Louth division would be amalgamated with Cavan and Monaghan, with the addition of part of east Meath. I am fairly sure at this stage that the Minister has been spoken to and written to by joint policing committees across Louth, Cavan and Monaghan. I think Cavan and Monaghan would make the argument that they would see an awful lot of the resources being used in County Louth on the basis of the size of Dundalk and Drogheda, the large urban communities and, to be clear, the particular need there is in regard to the level of crime. We also have the Border and the M1. We have a number of issues that do not necessarily exist in an awful lot of other places. It does not make sense that the Commissioner has not reviewed this proposal. I have written to him myself, along with Deputy Munster. I cannot say that the reply we got was exactly what I was looking for.
Kerry is to remain a stand-alone division. Donegal, which was to go in with Sligo and Leitrim is to remain a stand-alone division. It does not make any sense in regard to County Louth.
We know the particular issues we have had in County Louth. We talk about the loss of Garda Tony Golden and Garda Adrian Donohoe. We know the huge work that had to be done on the Drogheda feud and Operation Stratus. Three gardaí were seriously injured recently in Dundalk, one more seriously than the others, when they were rammed by a stolen car. These are the sort of issues that are being dealt with.
The Minister will come back and say something to the effect that she is not going to direct the Commissioner, but there needs to be a review of what is going on. What is happening with Garda divisions does not make sense to anybody outside of Garda leadership at this point in time. The changes are due to happen in December and we know 6 November is an important date. I do not think there is anybody in the State who does not realise the issue with rosters.
Gardaí face a huge number of issues in respect of morale and that is why recruitment and retention need to be addressed. Whatever arguments can be made by gardaí regarding work-life balance, I am sure the Commissioner, like everybody else, realises that the only way we can fill units at the minute is by taking people from other units, namely, specialist units. We have heard that we may lose a community garda in Dundalk. At times we are being told that such units are being protected but that relates to those that are appointed.
A huge amount of work has been done by the Minister and others on domestic violence, which I am very glad about. I have been told that protective services is not something that will be impacted in County Louth. However, there will be new rosters. We need a solution to that and something that works. There is a chief superintendent dealing with Louth, Cavan and Monaghan who has responsibility for crime, including intelligence-led operations and major crime, such as murder investigations. The person will be based in Bailieborough and deal with the three counties. I do not think that is workable in any way, shape or form.
We know the issues we have with drugs across the board. We are in a different world. There are mental health issues. We know the supports that gardaí do not have. We have to deal with the issues that we can deal with as soon as possible.
It feels like we are in the midst of a full blown crisis in our criminal justice system and I do not use that term lightly. As I said yesterday when the Minister was in the Chamber as I made my remarks to the Taoiseach, the criminal courts of justice effectively came to a halt because of industrial action by barristers. They have not been listened to. They started a discussion around their dispute on 12 July and nothing has happened from the Minister's Department or the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, between July, August and September - we are now into October - to make sure that would not go ahead. The action went ahead yesterday and more is planned. They are not being listened to. Two thirds of barristers leave the job after six years. A sexual assault cause almost collapsed in May because of the lack of a senior counsel. That is effectively a crisis.
The number of prisoners in Mountjoy sleeping on floors has quadrupled. The governor has said we have too many prisoners on four month sentences, which is clogging up the system and is not working. He is not being listened to. We now have a situation where every Tuesday this month, including Hallowe'en, gardaí will refuse to take up overtime. That means the system will effectively collapse this month.
I do not need to tell the Minister that were she to go to any community policing meeting in my constituency and tell people Garda numbers will be curtailed on Hallowe'en, it would frighten the hell out of them. We know there is a massive morale issue in An Garda Síochána. Before I even come to the dispute, there is a retention and recruitment issue. Too many gardaí are telling me they would not join the force now. The Minister spoke in glowing terms about community gardaí, and all of the rest of it, in regard to how the numbers are being protected, but there is no sense that those numbers are being increased. As other Deputies have said, we hear from places like Baldoyle in my constituency that community gardaí are being withdrawn.
From my teaching experience, community work and role as a politician, I know that the most important role of An Garda Síochána is that of the community garda. Community gardaí solved, stopped, halted and prevented more crime than any other unit of An Garda Síochána by engaging with young people, talking to schools, being a presence on the ground, a friendly face, a name that people knew and trusted and in terms of getting behind the uniform.
I have the utmost respect for An Garda Síochána. I have members of the force in my family. People have lost their lives and have put their lives on the line for the safety of the State and individuals, which has to be recognised. I am fundamentally a pro-Garda person, but in certain parts of the country, in particular Dublin, there has traditionally been a relationship problem and tension between members of An Garda Síochána and certain working-class communities. To deny that would not be truthful. That has been painstakingly worked on over generations to try to work beyond the uniform and tension and begin to know people as individuals.
When the availability of gardaí to come to a meeting, visit a school or be seen at a community event is stripped away, that is more damaging than anything else. When I hear from my constituency that community gardaí are no longer available in areas where I work, are being withdrawn or there are fewer of them, I know that in ten years' time we will feel the results of that.
Last night, I was at a meeting I organised in Raheny and what I heard did not, unfortunately, shock me. One family has been consistently targeted by young people on bikes pelting their house, and this has been going on for four years. They have an infant child. Young people are racially abusing people who work in a local shop and are causing all sorts of hassle. A local Church of Ireland church finds it impossible to do what it normally does in terms of community work because of the nature of the intimidation and antisocial behaviour that is happening. I do not want to be unfair, but when I interact with local gardaí I get the feeling from them that they are doing an impossible job. My worry is what these young people will be like in ten years' time.
We now have a situation whereby gardaí are engaged in an industrial dispute. The Minister knows that touches at the very sense of security that everybody in this country has. If there is an industrial dispute of that nature, it means that everybody feels a little bit more insecure. I do not agree with calls in the House for the Commissioner to resign. That is not a fruitful or positive contribution to this debate. Over the past ten years, two Garda Commissioners have left under a cloud. There have been changes at the top of the Department of Justice. Ministers have had to resign for various reasons. We have had a lot of insecurity and upheaval in the justice system for the past ten years. We do not need more calls for heads to go.
I did not agree with the wording of the motion put down by the GRA to its members but having spoken to individual gardaí, they told me they voted no confidence in the Garda Commissioner because that was the only avenue they had to express their displeasure at the rostering situation. We can, therefore, divorce the two things. I do not think calls like that are helpful.
However, as I have said to the Minister before, the Policing Authority has a role here. It was only established ten years ago and has a role in overseeing the Garda plan for the year and its implementation. It should certainly have a view as to how this dispute could be resolved. We cannot have a situation of rolling days of action by barristers closing down the criminal justice system or gardaí not being available for overtime every Tuesday this month. We cannot allow that to intensify.
We cannot have a situation whereby many gardaí want to leave the force or communities feel unsafe. This is happening on the Minister's watch. We have to work on solutions. As others have said, the Minister has done a solid amount of work in various different aspects of her brief, which is commendable, in particular the establishment of the sexual assault and gender-based violence agency, which we discussed last week.
However, this is a full-blown crisis. What is happening on the ground in areas I represent is hurting people's sense of security. We need to work on issues such as the new Garda station for Dublin 17 at Northern Cross. That is something I know the Government has committed to. This station will be a major new Garda divisional headquarters. However, denying that this is a crisis will not help anybody in this House or in the communities we serve to feel more secure.
I thank the Regional Group for tabling this very timely motion. This time last year, I tabled a parliamentary question relating to rosters to which the Minister replied. I am asking myself how are we still here. It has been 12 months since I got that reply and it was a bubbling issue at that stage. It is unthinkable that we are here 12 months later and this is at crisis point.
In her statement around the time of the motion of no confidence in the Garda Commissioner, the Minister said that she discussed the ballot and Garda rosters with him. I would like to know what discussions she had about the Garda rosters because it is a central issue in retaining gardaí and encouraging others to join the force. Nobody thinks that the current roster or the previous one is correct but we have to reach a solution. Why has it come to a point where people feel they are being put at risk and where the gardaí have to withdraw overtime to really bring it to this point?
There are 500,000 more people in this country than there were according to the previous census. I have been producing a report on the ratio of gardaí to the population for years and have given the Minister copies of it. Her own county is the worst while Kildare is the second worst. Both counties are fast-growing areas. The purpose of the census is to provide services in proportion to the population but there is no growth. We have fewer gardaí now than we had prior to the previous census even though there are 500,000 more people in the country.
It is very difficult to predict retirements. The Policing Authority talks about there being somewhere in the region of 2,000 retirements over the next ten years. There could be more than that. I do not see the workforce planning in this regard. I do not see the efforts to make it more attractive to join An Garda Síochána. Certainly the roster and the work-life balance are critical issues. This must be factored in.
The Minister's constituency is the worst in the country. Yesterday, which was the first day of this action, there was one car available in Blanchardstown in the Taoiseach's constituency. Blanchardstown has the same population as Limerick city. This is bonkers. It just shows the risk people see when they can see resources stretched to that extent. I routinely deal with my local gardaí and have nothing but positive things to say about that interaction but some of them are being put at risk because of how thin the resources are in responding to incidents. I have spoken previously of seeing gardaí responding on their own. It is not surprising that people are being head-hunted. They are well-trained and experienced and they are being head-hunted by industry to work for better pay in a less risky environment.
We have to hear about solutions to this dispute. It is very difficult to see how the solution will be reached if the vast majority of people who voted for this action and the largest body of gardaí are not at the table. The preconditions have been very unhelpful in that regard, particularly that the old roster should be restored by a certain date.
As the population grows, services must grow with it and they must grow in the places to which people are moving. This is not happening. It has not happened as long as I have been producing that report, which is seven or eight years. If people are going to feel safe, they require an immediate response to this dispute.
More than anything else, it is the hypocrisy that grates the most. The Taoiseach used the phrase again yesterday that Fine Gael uses repeatedly - "the party of law and order". It is almost Orwellian at this point that Fine Gael continues to refer to itself in those terms when after holding the Ministry for justice for more than 12 years, we have seen continued deterioration and increasing dysfunction in how our streets are policed and how our Garda stations are resourced. We all experience that as public representatives in our constituencies almost on a weekly basis. I know of stations in Cabra that have to give their only Garda car over to Finglas. I have continuously raised in this Chamber the issue of how Dublin city centre is policed and not just during the summer when it peaked in terms of attention, yet here we are today.
To truly be a party of law and order, Fine Gael would first have to treat the people who are tasked with enforcing it with respect and decency when it comes to pay and conditions and this very clearly is not the case. Rank-and-file gardaí are demonstrating that in this action in a number of different ways - no less than the vote, which has been discussed. This year alone, 96 members of An Garda Síochána have resigned. In 2016, the equivalent number was 24. I have talked to a number of friends who have left An Garda Síochána and I have also watched the "Prime Time" documentary. As gardaí left, they have highlighted the dysfunction and harassment in terms of they were asked to serve in a job; the lack of civilianisation, which is a political issue; and an absence of IT resources, which limits how they can do their job. This is before we get to the fact that the increasing cost of living means they cannot afford to pay their rent or pay for childcare. We have put An Garda Síochána in the same position as the teaching profession. We have broken the social contract and we are paying the price on the streets.
During the summer, national attention was drawn to Dublin city centre because of high volumes of crime and the frequency of attacks on people. There were three responses to that. The first was a photo op and a press release that spoke of armed gardaí and dogs on the streets. This was a photo op for the sake of a photo op. There should not be armed gardaí and dogs on the streets. Nobody wanted that; people just wanted a basic policing presence. Funding of €10 million was supposed to be used to fund Garda overtime. Clearly, that has become a joke now. It is not going to happen. It was also going to run out by Christmas and everything would have turned back. A 52-page document spoke about a future policing plan for the inner city. It is effectively a stream of consciousness. There is no resourcing in it. All the action points are highlighted with a lack of resources, funding and interest. It is a joke. What the inner city needs is an effective continuing policing presence and to do that, the Minister needs to demonstrate much more leadership than what we have seen.
As we celebrate the centenary of An Garda Síochána, it is crucial to acknowledge the pressing challenges this revered institution. Morale within the force has plummeted to an all-time low and this crisis of confidence cannot be ignored. The GRA, which represents rank-and-file gardaí, recently registered an overwhelming vote of no confidence in the force's most senior officer, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris, by a staggering 98.7%. Being honest, if the Minister, me or anyone else had 98.7% of our team against us, it would be the writing on the wall for us and we would do the honourable thing. Instead of the Minister standing in to deal with this crisis, she stood idly by and let a bad situation get worse.
It looks like An Garda Síochána is being run by a dictatorship at the top. The Minister and the Taoiseach are supporting this while, at the same time, crime is out of control in many areas of our country. The GRA further revealed that many officially open Garda stations are suffering from a shortage of permanent gardaí, especially in rural stations, resulting in fewer gardaí covering larger geographical areas and communities receiving only skeleton response hours. These closed Garda stations once played a crucial role in maintaining a visible Garda presence on the streets, which contributed to the community's sense of security. The closure of these mainly rural Garda stations across rural Ireland points to a broader pattern of removing essential community services from towns and villages outside Dublin. We need action and this action has to come from the Minister's side immediately.
The Minister's own backbenchers are not here. An Garda Síochána is the same. Her own constituency is the worst in the country for numbers. Will she wake up and smell the coffee? PR exercises and stunts such as walking down O'Connell Street flanked by senior gardaí are no good. It does not cut it. I salute the members of An Garda Síochána for the bravery and courage they have shown against all kinds of adversity. Now, when they need to be supported and respected, they are not getting respect from the Commissioner or from the Minister. She is out minutes after he says he is not going to resign. She is not listening to him, his is doing his own thing, and she is giving him 100% support. Will the Minister please cop on, understand what is going on and get the Commissioner in there to listen to his members. I will not go over what I said on Leaders' Questions last week when I raised this about the Commissioner going off and his Deputy Commissioners and others trying to sort it out and he comes back and tears it up. He has no experience of dealing with a force like An Garda Síochána. Obviously, I welcome a Commissioner from outside the State but we made the wrong decision and the sooner we realise that, the better. Why have we now got three more very senior officers from the Police Service of Northern Ireland, PSNI, ex-Royal Irish Constabulary, RIC, down here? What is going on? As for respect at the moment for the GRA, it gets the support of the community because they support the community. Our community police in Tipperary, including in Clonmel and all over, do excellent work. Garda John Walsh in my own area does excellent work. However, the figures are there. The drug squad is going to be disbanded and community policing is disbanded already. It is a free-for-all for the criminals. We have to get this sorted out. I appeal to the Minister to do the right thing before it gets any worse.
I am sorry to say that it is very clear that the Minister is taking the side of the Commissioner and she should be intervening and trying to sort the problem out rather than doing that. This change in roster is antagonising all those in the force. From what I have heard on the grapevine, what it will mean for Kerry and places like it, is that in a vast area from Killarney, through Killorglin, into Cahersiveen, Valentia Island back up to Waterville, Sneem and Kilgarvan and all around that entire ring, only one Garda car will be available from 2 a.m. until 6 a.m. That is not acceptable. We were already told this morning on the radio that there is a 4% reduction in the force in Kerry. The other thing is that boys and girls from Kerry contemplating joining the force invariably know they will be sent to Dublin. They cannot afford to live up here. Even if there was a man and a woman who were husband and wife, they would not be able to afford to live in Dublin. Will the Minister do something about that to ensure the job makes it worth their while to join? There are so many members of the force from Kerry up here who want to get down the country and out of Dublin.
I support the motion and commend the Regional Group on bringing it forward. In particular, I support the call to increase the number of gardaí in the State to 16,000 by 2028. In May this year, I was informed that the Laois-Offaly divisional drug unit of An Garda Síochána has the lowest number of Garda members assigned to it compared to every other county and Garda division in the State. I have raised this in the Chamber. It was also confirmed to me that just one Garda member is assigned to the Laois-Offaly divisional drug unit, which is extremely concerning. That is a single garda for counties with a combined population of 150,000. Why is it that Laois-Offaly is the only constituency in the entire country with just one garda assigned to this particular role? Apart from Wexford, we are also the only counties without any member at sergeant rank attached to its drug unit and this is entirely unacceptable. There are 332 members assigned to various divisional drug units, yet here we are with just member assigned in Laois-Offaly. I want answers on this and I would be grateful if I could get that clarity as a matter of urgency.
If we are honest here and 98.7% of the House had no confidence in the Minister, she would not be here. If 51% had no confidence, she would not be here. However, 98.7% of the members of An Garda Síochána have no confidence in Commissioner Harris and he is still here. He has single-handedly destroyed the Garda service in Ireland. Gardaí are no longer counting the years to retirement; they are counting the days and hours. Those who want to join the force are saying if the Commissioner does not listen to gardaí, what hope do they have in joining the force? If the Minister does not listen to them and the Commissioner is not listening to them, there is no support. Why have we been using a failed English policing service system here? Why do we not have Irish women and men who can run An Garda Síochána in this country, which used to be a community Garda service in which people were all involved together and supportive of each other?
It was so disappointing to see the Minister for Justice turn her back on the rank and file gardaí up and down the length and breadth of this country and to give a blank cheque of support to Commissioner Drew Harris. He has failed in securing the support of even a minority of gardaí and he has let them down. However, the Minister and the Government gave him a blank cheque. If only they knew how hurtful it was to the members of An Garda Síochána. I am listening to them and what they say is not only have they lost confidence and hope in the Commissioner, they have lost hope in the Minister because she did not even offer them an olive branch or a hand out; all she said was that she was supporting the Commissioner. It was a ridiculously political naive decision to make and she was backed by the Taoiseach. Even if the Taoiseach backed Commissioner Harris, the Minister should not have. She should have said: "No, I am Minister for Justice and I am going to stand with the gardaí." She has let them down and it will never be forgotten. There are a quarter of a million people if you take the members of An Garda Síochána and their immediate group of support into account. The Minister has alienated herself from an awful lot of people and what she did to them will never be forgotten. It was really bad.
I thank the Regional Group for the motion. I support the tenor of the motion, although there are one or two things it calls for which I do not agree with. I fully support what the Deputies are trying to do in putting the spotlight on the retention, recruitment, and morale problems, particularly in recognising that the morale in the force is declining and is currently at an all-time low. However, I quickly did a google search and the exact same thing was said in 2007 when Senator Michael McDowell was the Minister of Justice. At that time, we were told by the Garda sergeants and inspectors that morale was at an all-time low. That followed, of course, the Morris tribunal and the Barrett case, which I may have a chance to come back to.
I support the review that is being called for. I have a difficulty with mandatory custodial sentences. Perhaps that could be discussed in a different forum. I definitely support an increase in the number of gardaí on the beat and in pay levels, training and support; psychological and otherwise. I agree with all of these and have no difficulty with any of them.
My colleague, Deputy Noel Grealish, and I sometimes disagree but I fully agree with him on what he said regarding Galway city and county. He highlighted the figures. I sit on the joint policing committee. I would say it is for my sins, or maybe it is a privilege. I swing between the two when I sit on the committee but at least it keeps me very close to the ground and to what councillors and the man in charge of the gardaí is telling us. He tells us he has difficulty filling vacancies. Deputy Grealish outlined the numbers. I did not have the figures to hand but I had them a few weeks ago at the joint policing committee. Roles for 16 sergeants and 30 uniformed gardaí remain vacant. Maidir le Gaeilge, tá an-fhadhb acu na folúntais i gConamara agus sna ceantair Ghaeltachta a líonadh. Níl siad in ann na folúntais sin a líonadh le gardaí le Gaeilge.
Uaireanta, nuair a éiríonn leo gardaí a fháil le Gaeilge, bíonn deacrachtaí eile ann ó thaobh cúrsaí tithíochta. Ritheann cás amháin trí mo cheann anois agus mé i mbun cainte. Is duine atá i gceist atá ina bhall den Gharda Síochána. Tá bean chéile aige atá ag obair sa cheantar freisin. Tá post aige sa cheantar ach níl sé in ann cead pleanála a fháil.
Tá dhá fhadhb i gceist. Is iad sin na folúntais a líonadh agus ansin, nuair atá daoine le Gaeilge faighte acu, níl siad in ann teach a fháil sa Ghaeltacht. Tagann sé sin anuas ar an tuarascáil a scríobh an Coimisinéir Teanga ó thaobh an sárú dlí a bhí i gceist ag an nGarda maidir le gan a bheith in ann daoine le Gaeilge a sholáthar do na ceantair Ghaeltachta. Thosaigh an fiosrúchán sin, is dócha, in 2010; bhí tuarascáil; agus tá lucht bainistíochta an Gharda Síochána fós ag sárú an dlí ó thaobh soláthar gardaí do cheantair Ghaeltachta le Gaeilge.
I will not translate what I have said because I think the Minister got most of it. There is an ongoing problem in filling vacancies. When I attend the joint policing committee, the failure to fill the vacancies is highlighted over and over. People have huge concerns about the demotion of the Garda station in Salthill and the headquarters on the other side of the city in Murrough. The gardaí on the ground do too. It makes no sense to me.
I happened to be on the justice committee for a brief period when the Commissioner came before us to discuss the new regional model. All of us on that committee raised our concerns as to what would happen to community policing. We were reassured over and over that this would not be a problem and that the focus would be on it. In the Minister's speech today she talked about the new Garda community policing model. Unfortunately, that has not been seen on the ground. Perhaps she can give us a date as to when we will actually see it.
I live in two worlds, as most Deputies do: I live in a world up here and in another world in Galway city. When we sat in the convention centre for more than two years, as I walked home I saw the difficulties building up on the ground. I saw - I do not like the term "antisocial behaviour" - people misbehaving. I saw young people on bikes - "terrorising" is a bad word - but I was certainly in fear, with other people, walking up Grafton Street. Coming from the convention centre, I got a good idea of that area right up to where I was going, and those problems were building up in Dublin. In Galway, there is the exact same thing, that is, the building up of problems on the ground because of the failure to have community gardaí on the ground. The one issue on which every Deputy present is in agreement is that we want gardaí on the ground to trust and to go to.
The Minister mentioned domestic violence. I stayed on on Thursday to talk about that and I welcome what has happened. There are serious concerns as to whether the agency will be just another bureaucratic layer. The reality of what women face was brought into acute focus the next day with the murder of another woman in the midlands. There is more than one such murder a month at the moment. We need to resource and train gardaí. We brought in the protective units, which represented progress, but they need to be resourced and trained.
As regards the background to the Garda, I want gardaí on the ground. I want to be able to go up to them and to trust them. The vote of no confidence in the Commissioner I will leave between the gardaí and the Commissioner. I wish it had not come to this, ostensibly over a rota. I wish it had been sorted out. Obviously, it reflects lack of trust and low morale on the ground, which really should not be there.
As I have said previously, my introduction to the Dáil was the O'Higgins report on Garda behaviour and management as regards Sergeant McCabe. Despite the investigation and everything else, he was saved by having a recording on his phone of what was actually said. He went home rooting for that phone. Prior to that, we had the Morris tribunal. It cost us €70 million, and the price is still rising. Does the Minister know what it found? It detailed systematised corruption, negligence, misconduct and a "blue wall of silence" in County Donegal. The mistake the system made was to think that that was just Donegal when there were serious problems at management level with openness, accountability and honesty. Then it took another tribunal, the Charleton or disclosures tribunal, which is ongoing, to talk about what is necessary in the Garda: honesty, loyalty to the public, not the institution, to be seen, to be heard, and that the Garda would hear the people. We need those basic things in the Garda Síochána. That is the Garda Síochána I support. That is the Garda Síochána I want to praise: people on the ground whom one can trust. Unfortunately, there is not a history of that in the 100 years since the establishment of the Garda Síochána. Obviously, there are very good gardaí on the ground but, with the retention and recruitment problem, they are leaving in droves because of the lack of morale. That is what I would love to see us discussing here, not a vote of no confidence in a Commissioner that should never have come to this point.
There was a reference to previous Commissioners. One of them disgraced himself. It came out later through the evidence of the Comptroller and Auditor General, something whispered in his ear, which I will not repeat, about Sergeant McCabe, which was absolutely disgraceful and disgusting from the former Commissioner. I put my words in that context, and in that context I support the general tenor of the motion.
I recently asked the Minister, Deputy McEntee, if she had confidence in the Garda Commissioner and she told me she did and so did the Government. I will tell the House who has no confidence in him: the rank-and-file gardaí in my constituency of Clare, and my civilian constituents' lack of confidence in him continues to grow every day.
I will focus on the new Garda operational model, which has seen a superintendent taken out of Kilrush, which I have called a disgraceful decision in this House many times, a statement I reiterate today. The overly central allocation of Garda resources resulted in two gardaí covering Kilkee during the busiest day of the year, the August bank holiday Saturday. Gangs of strangers came into the town, committed violent assaults and caused criminal damage to property without fear of being arrested because there was not a garda available to do so. This is a disgraceful and shameful failure of the Garda operational model that we are seeing first-hand in County Clare.
This model is failing my constituents, and when I raise Garda deficits with the Minister, my questions are disallowed because the allocation of Garda resources is an operational matter for the Garda Commissioner. What I would like to know is how the allocation of resources can be a matter for the Commissioner, yet the Minister can step in and inject €10 million into one specific region, Dublin, and leave the rest of Ireland wanting. People outside of Dublin are entitled to stronger, safer communities too.
The Government is committed to ensuring that An Garda Síochána has the resources it needs to deliver on the goal of building stronger, safer communities. My colleague, the Minister, Deputy McEntee, has consistently asked gardaí what more she can do to provide supports for them as they do their job. Being a garda is difficult. I do not, nor should any of us, take for granted their efforts or underestimate the risks to which they are exposed every day on our behalf. I am certain most of us are related to somebody who is a garda, and we know not just the impact of their role but also the impact on their wider families, working shift work and all the dangers that go with that.
That is why the Minister enacted legislation before the summer to increase the maximum sentence for assaulting a member of An Garda Síochána and other emergency workers from seven to 12 years. That is why one of her main priorities this term is to pass the recording devices Bill to allow gardaí to wear bodycams from next year. Last month, An Garda Síochána began the tender process for purchasing bodycams and publicly demonstrated how they will work. The Bill will not only allow us give gardaí bodycams, but also reform CCTV schemes. Under the Bill, community groups will be able to request schemes in their areas. This will also help gardaí and tackle crime and antisocial behaviour. The Government will always make sure money is available for new uniforms, better equipment and new technologies and support the well-being of Garda personnel.
Policing as a profession exposes people to sometimes traumatic and challenging incidents. It is important that personnel have access to, and avail of, these supports when they need them. At a strategic level, An Garda Síochána is prioritising this through its health and well-being strategy. This plan identified how the organisation could improve the health and welfare of gardaí, whether that is by better communicating the existing supports available or by developing partnerships to offer new supports. In conjunction with the employee assistance service, a peer supporter group was established within An Garda Síochána. Peer supporters are colleagues who have received appropriate training to help members cope with the effect of a traumatic incident in the workplace. Very often in circumstances of traumatic incidents, the response from a peer supporter has a huge impact in assisting colleagues in the aftermath of such occurrences. Since June 2016, a 24-7, 365-day independent helpline and counselling service has been available to all staff within An Garda Síochána, with the service available for both work and personal difficulties.
Each member of the organisation may avail of six free sessions of counselling per year and an additional two will be provided if clinically approved. All appointments and consultants are arranged directly between the service provider and the staff member. Trauma-based counselling is also now available to all personnel following a traumatic incident in work. This counselling is a self-referral and is accessed through the same helpline, but the individual indicates to the call taker that the request is as a result of a traumatic incident. Work ion delivering mental health first aid training to all Garda personnel during 2023 and 2024 is also at an advanced stage.
The issue of Garda rosters is of central importance to Garda members, as we all know. I understand how important the issue of rosters is to everyone involved. They are important to the work and family life of individual gardaí. They are also important for the Commissioner's ability to operate the organisation efficiently and effectively and to maximise Garda visibility. The Garda roster currently in operation, which has become known as the Covid roster, was introduced by the Commissioner to deal with the specific policing requirements that arose during the Covid pandemic. Nobody believes that the Covid roster or pre-Covid roster is a long-term solution. The Government and, in particular, the Minister, Deputy McEntee, want to see a solution to this issue in order to support the health and well-being of members of An Garda Síochána. We also want to ensure that whatever the roster in place, it serves the public and provides the high visibility policing we all want in this House. The Commissioner has the Government’s full support. Equally, all of us in this House support Garda members in the work they do. We want to see a resolution to this impasse. Roster negotiations have been ongoing for some time and I urge all parties to continue to proactively engage on this matter. There is time to negotiate, double down and try to find a solution, namely, a new roster.
The motion states that the mission of An Garda Síochána is "Keeping People Safe”, and that is right. Policing has a central role in this, but keeping our citizens safe is much broader than just policing. We have to continually ask ourselves what more we can do to protect vulnerable people in society. It is about having laws that are fit for purpose. A few months ago, the Minister was invited to close an event for the Women’s Aid impact report 2022. There is no doubt that many of the figures and statistics in that particular study are shocking. Twelve women died violently in 2022. That was 12 lives taken and 12 families forced to suffer immeasurable grief. I reiterate the Government’s determination to deliver a society that does not accept this brutality or the attitudes that underpin it. Domestic abuse is not a lesser crime; it is assault, assault causing harm, assault causing serious harm and murder. We can never suggest that these crimes, because they are occurring at the hands of an intimate partner, should be treated any less than they are. They are the most serious of crimes.
Victims of domestic abuse are particularly vulnerable and the perpetrators of these hideous crimes must feel the full force of our law. The roll-out of divisional protective service units across the country shows that An Garda Síochána is committed to supporting vulnerable victims and to bringing to justice those that target them. Headline figures from the 2022 Women’s Aid report showed that it received more than 33,000 disclosures of domestic abuse against women and children last year, including more than 1,000 cases of sexual abuse; that four in five of those in contact were abused by a current or former male intimate partner; and that contact with Women’s Aid overall was up by 16%. The Minister and I believe that these statistics tell two stories. They demonstrate the scale of the continuing challenge we face in ending domestic and sexual abuse but also, more positively, they show that more of those who have suffered in silence are seeking support. Sadly, we also know that these contacts only represent the tip of the iceberg and that there are still so many who are trapped in traumatic and desperate situations, subjected daily to psychological and physical abuse at the hands of someone they should be able to trust. Continuing with our efforts to combat all forms of domestic and sexual violence is essential if we are to stop the psychological abuse and torture, end the assaults and stop the murders that far too many women, and some men, are continuing to fall victim to.
I thank the Deputies for raising these points because those latter points I make are intrinsically associated with the role of An Garda Síochána in enforcing and implementing those new strategies to bring about cultural change in Ireland around domestic abuse and all the other areas that we have discussed today, including keeping people in this country safe. The Government is proud of An Garda Síochána and we hope to see the issues that have arisen resolved as soon as possible. That can only happen through close and detailed engagement. I thank the House for the opportunity to speak on this motion.
I thank Cáit Nic Amhlaoibh in our parliamentary service for helping us with the motion, and I thank the line Minister, Deputy McEntee, for being in attendance for the entirety of the debate. That does not happen often and, as such, we note the Minister's attendance and thank her for it.
As we know, it has been 100 years since the foundation of An Garda Síochána. It is a community police service that serves with the consent of the people. We also know that our front-line gardaí are unarmed and that the Garda is one of the few forces in Europe for which that remains the case. When you meet a garda you are not meeting an armed officer. An Garda Síochána is one of the few such forces in the world. At one time, gardaí were embedded in the community. Sadly, however, that is no longer the case and we have seen how the shutdown of rural Garda stations has unnerved many in our rural and regional communities.
I will talk about resources, particularly for the divisional headquarters in Waterford, an issue I have raised in this House since I was elected in 2020. Despite significant capacity challenges, we are still, three and a half years later, discussing how that facility can be expanded. We know we have extra people coming in from the private sector and working in the Garda, but there is no room for them in the divisional headquarters in Waterford. I ask the Minister again to try to prioritise some scoping works and the development of that divisional headquarters.
Where we have arrived with the GRA and policing in general reflects an ongoing trend. Policing is not what it was 30 years ago. The challenges are now very different. They are immense and overwhelming for many front-line gardaí. We have to acknowledge, whether we like it or not, that there is a significant sense of entitlement among citizens. The State has had to adapt but we treat gardaí differently from how we treat citizens. I will give an example. When someone commits a street assault there is, under an unspoken statute of limitations, a requirement to have the book of evidence ready and presented within six months. If a frivolous complaint is made against a garda, the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission steps in and there is no statute of limitations. A significant number of gardaí have been suspended and are waiting to have these cases heard, some of them for many years. Surely this has a corrosive effect on the way people feel about how they are being treated in their jobs. I know of a number of members who were stood down, cannot wear their uniforms, are bound to desk duty and have lost allowances based on frivolous complaints. It muddies the water in terms of the attitude of the rank and file and how they perceive they are being treated when they have to bring their own books of evidence into the courts so quickly. I ask the Minister to address that issue.
On rostering, the rank and file feel they have not been listened to for quite some time. I accept that the decision to appoint Commissioner Harris was seen as an appointment of a reforming Commissioner. Not all gardaí are angels and there is no doubt that reform of the service was needed. However, over time there has been an overbearing governance in the Garda, without discussion with rank-and-file members. When members of the Garda raise issues they feel they are not being listened to. Rostering and the challenges it presents to new gardaí in particular are a fundamental challenge.
Gardaí leaving Templemore will most likely be sent to Dublin and receive the initial pay rate. I understand that pay grades move on but they are being asked to find accommodation in Dublin that is not available. As the Minister knows, they are commuting significant distances. Even in Waterford we have gardaí who are commuting from Tipperary and Wexford every day. If the six-day roster is to be returned, gardaí will see a significant increase in their travel times and costs. There is no housing. That is the fundamental deficit across our economy at present and one of the things feeding this debate.
I have spoken to a number of married and cohabiting gardaí. If they are on opposing rosters, when will they get time to spend together?
Managing children and childcare is a massive issue for them. They have been raising this with their representative association. It does not appear that anyone in the higher echelons is listening. We only have a police force with the consent of its members to do the job it is doing. They have threatened to withdraw that consent, which is a very serious place to arrive at.
The issue of transfers-----
I thank the Deputy.
Am I done? I thought we had more time.
I call Deputy Denis Naughten.
There is ten minutes remaining in the time for the debate.
There is ten minutes in total in this slot.
The debate is to finish at 12 noon.
I can give a little leeway.
Under Standing Orders, this debate is to finish at 12 noon and if there is additional time left after the speaking slots, it falls to the group that has tabled the motion. There may be a procedural issue but there should be additional time available to us.
A slot that had been allocated was not taken up. With everyone's agreement, we will continue this slot until 12 noon. Is that agreed? Agreed.
It is extended in line with Standing Orders.
I thank the Chair. I want to speak about Garda transfers. Gardaí have been waiting for many years for transfers with not a hope of getting one. This is why we see early retirements. It is something the Minister has to look at. We need radical action and this is what the vote represents. It is frustration among rank-and-file gardaí. It is a communications issue with governance and head office. This is what needs to be addressed.
I thank my colleagues for tabling this motion. I thank Cáit Nic Amhlaoibh for her assistance in drafting it. I thank the Minister for being present. It is not often that we have a Minister present throughout a Private Members' debate. I acknowledge that.
The Minister acknowledged there is a significant issue here. She has publicly acknowledged this and it is important. All of us in the House recognise there are serious concerns about the ongoing challenges with An Garda Síochána and the unofficial industrial action that is taking place.
We are speaking about having an immediate review of An Garda Síochána as a force, with engagement with all of the stakeholders involved, to be to be chaired by An Taoiseach, and to make recommendations within 12 weeks, which is a tight timescale. Something new is needed to unblock the impasse. We need urgent intervention that is different from the engagement on this to date.
We all recognise that An Garda Síochána is a dedicated force with the professionalism and commitment to deliver in communities throughout the country. There is a morale issue that needs to be addressed. It is in all our interests to do so. We all want to see these issues resolved. We need to see re-engagement from all sides on this. Resignations will not solve any of the current problems we have. The citizens of this country have a legitimate right to feel safe in their own homes. This industrial action is causing anxiety, particularly among older people, and the lack of constructive engagement is adding to this concern. It is important that all involved re-engage on these issues.
I want the Minister to remember "743 days". Last year, I met a middle-ranking member of the force. I have known him for years as we went to school together. I asked him how things were and he said "743 days". I asked him what he meant. He said he had only 743 days until he retired. That is a poor reflection of where things are at in An Garda Síochána at present.
A constituent contacted me to explain that she had contacted the district headquarters of An Garda Síochána in Roscommon because there were no gardaí in the station in Taughmaconnell. She had a particular concern that she wanted to express. The garda on duty asked her to spell Taughmaconnell. If the gardaí in the local district do not even know the local Garda stations, it gives rise to real concern in communities.
As the Minister knows, approximately two years ago, I raised with her in the House the issue of manpower in the Garda district in Roscommon. On 4 October 2021, only one Garda was covering an area from Ballyleague on the River Shannon to Ballinasloe on the River Suck. It is a very large rural Garda district in County Roscommon. This was because 25 gardaí had left the district due to promotion, transfer or retirement and had not been replaced. These were issues before there was any mention of changing the Covid roster and they have caused high levels of damage in the force. The issues with the roster are an expression of frustration regarding the morale issues in the force that need to be urgently addressed.
New members appointed to the force will be sent to Dublin. They will have to travel long distances because they will not get accommodation for love nor money in the city. The rostering issues are only an expression of the frustration about broader issues. I know the Minister and her office are inundated with issues about Garda transfers. Members of the force have got married but cannot relocate back home. There is a couple, both of whom are members of the force, who are based in a far-flung region but who built a house locally in my constituency. They are paying the mortgage for it but cannot live there because they cannot get a transfer back to anywhere in reasonable commuting distance of their homes. This flexibility needs to be reintroduced in the force. It has been sadly lacking in recent times. I know this is down to manpower issues but it needs to be urgently addressed.
The Minister, the Taoiseach in the House yesterday, gardaí on the ground and Garda management tell us the old roster is not fit for purpose. However, we are going back to it. I accept that talks on the roster have been ongoing for a considerable period. I respectfully suggest to the Minister that the issue of rostering should be taken out of this process. It should be dealt with independently. The reason I say this is that this is as much an issue for a mathematical calculation as it is for industrial relations. My colleague Deputy Shanahan is from Waterford. Waterford University Hospital engaged with Science Foundation Ireland and some of the top mathematicians in the country to come up with a new model for outpatient appointments. It transformed the operation of the outpatient clinics at Waterford University Hospital. I suggest the same should be done with this rostering issue.
Everyone accepts that the old roster does not work. We have issues with the current roster. Let us get some of the best brains in the country to come up with a practical, implementable solution that deals with the needs that An Garda Síochána management have and also deals with the genuine concerns of members of the force. In the interim, I urge the Minister to take on board the proposal in the motion for a 12-week review spearheaded by the Taoiseach to come up with constructive recommendations to add a long-term solution to this issue. I commend the motion to the House.
Amendment put.
Vótáil.
The vótáil is deferred until the voting time this evening.