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JOINT COMMITTEE ON JUSTICE, EQUALITY, DEFENCE AND WOMEN’S RIGHTS debate -
Tuesday, 6 May 2003

Vol. 1 No. 22

Commission on Liquor Licensing Report: Presentation.

I welcome our guests today, including Ms Aisling Reidy, the director of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, and Mr. Liam Herrick, the council's research and parliamentary officer. I also welcome the representatives of the Licensed Vintners Association, including the chairman, Mr. Kevin Towey. Perhaps Mr. Towey would like to introduce the other LVA representatives.

Mr. Kevin Towey

Thank you, Chairman. I am accompanied by Mr. Donal O'Keeffe, who was recently appointed as chief executive of the LVA, taking over from Mr. Frank Fell, who was probably known to all members of the committee. I am accompanied by Derek Healy, who is vice-chairman of the LVA. Derek's family has been in the licensed trade near the airport for 40 years so he has much experience. The chairman of our legal committee is Tony Gibney, who is the seventh generation of his family to be involved in the licensed trade and he operates a pub in Malahide.

The president of the Licensed Vintners Federation of Ireland is Mr. Joe Browne. Mr. Browne, you are welcome. Would you like to introduce your representatives?

Mr. Joe Browne

Thank you, Chairman. I am accompanied by our chief executive, Tadgh O'Sullivan, and Val Hanley, who has a pub in Galway and is mayor of Galway.

We are here to discuss the report of the Commission on Liquor Licensing. We have asked interested groups to come along to discuss it with the committee and I am glad they are here. We will take each group in alphabetical order. I would like each group to make a short presentation after which we will take questions from members of the committee. I invite Ms Reidy to make a presentation.

Ms Aisling Reidy

To clarify for the committee's convenience, we will be splitting the presentation. It should be a fairly short presentation because we have a written submission as well which, I understand, has been circulated. The main thrust of the argument has been forwarded to the Minister of State at the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy O'Dea, as part of a joint response from ourselves and other equality and human rights associations outlining our main concern about the report of the Commission on Liquor Licensing. Our presentation will be relatively short because we do not intend to deal with all the issues raised by the Commission on Liquor Licensing, not least because we have respect for the work of the commission and its expertise on the core elements of its remit and terms of reference.

We became concerned about the extension of the terms of reference of the commission to include the right to refuse admission to and service in licensed premises. It is that matter and the recommendations stemming from that examination which are reflected mainly in the interim report, but also in the final report, that gave rise to concern on the part of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties. We were concerned when we first heard the terms of reference were to be extended. Our concern is that the issue of the right to refuse service in or admission to a licensed premises is predominantly an issue which falls to be considered under equality legislation. Therefore, if a review of equality legislation is to be undertaken, we believe the appropriate body to do so is the Equality Authority, and all interested stakeholders, of which the commission may be one, could make submissions to and lobby the expert body.

From the outset, we expressed our concern that the Commission on Liquor Licensing was being asked to predominantly assess an equality law issue, particularly since its composition is not reflective of equality and human rights organisations. The committee is probably aware that we were asked to participate in the consultations of the commission but that we declined because of our firmly held view that it was not an appropriate body to consider this matter. We are still of that view. Knowing that the Equality Authority and organisations representing the Traveller community made submissions and seeing the recommendations which emerged from the commission, our view that the commission was not properly composed to consider the issue has been reinforced. However, it has the right to make a general submission on the matter representing the stakeholders of which it is composed.

As I outlined, our overarching concern is that many of the recommendations pertaining to the right to refuse admission and service come into conflict with equality legislation as do many of the recommendations about widening discretion and changing the jurisdiction in which determination of whether the right to refuse service has been discriminatory from the Equality Tribunal to the District Court. We will oppose any changes to the equality legislation which would weaken or undermine the protections against discrimination for any of the communities of the nine grounds represented in the equality legislation.

It is important that equality legislation is rigorously enforced. It is only through the rigorous enforcement of equality legislation that discrimination will be eliminated. My colleague will deal with the specific recommendations but most of them restrict or undermine equality legislation whether deliberately or as an indirect effect of the discretion sought via the recommendations of the Commission on Liquor Licensing.

The Government has ratified protocol 12 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Protocol 12 prohibits discrimination on a number of grounds, including those in our Equal Status Act. It will soon become part of Irish law through the European Convention on Human Rights Bill. It will, therefore, at a minimum, depending on amendments, be an interpretive imperative on all bodies to interpret legislation in compliance with protocol 12 of the European Convention on Human Rights. This will further strengthen the prohibition on discrimination in Irish law. Changes to laws which would increase discretion to refuse admission to groups or categories of persons are likely to come into conflict with that protocol when it becomes part of domestic legislation. There is already an obligation on the Government to ensure its legislation is compatible with the prohibition on discrimination in the European Convention on Human Rights.

In regard to equality legislation, I draw the committee's attention to the fact that the commission in its report refers to the fact that it is not clear whether the race directive, which is due to be transposed into Irish law, will also cover members of the Traveller community because it refers to discrimination based on race and ethnic groups. I assure the committee that membership of the Traveller community falls under the race directive as an ethnic group. I understand that it is explicit Government policy that membership of the Traveller community is considered membership of an ethnic group. If there is any doubt on the part of the commission that the race directive will apply to membership of the Traveller community, it should be set aside because it will apply to that group.

I raise that issue because we have stated in our submission that any changes to the equality legislation should be conducted primarily by the leading organisation, the Equality Authority. As the Equality Authority has already made recommendations to the Government on the implementation of the race directive and will consider legislation in the context of that directive, we consider that any changes or amendments to the Equal Status Act should take place in that context and not in the context of what is essentially a licensing issue.

We take particular objection, shared by the Equality Authority, to the report's recommendation that the Equality Tribunal should be undermined by providing that the jurisdiction to decide if a person has been discriminated against in terms of refusal should be transferred to the District Court. We oppose that recommendation. Unfortunately, like much of the commission's report we consider it to be an attack on the equality structure. We consider that there is a bias in the commission's report against the equality structures and institutions. We also find, for similar reasons to those of the Equality Authority, that there is very little reason to support change to the District Court jurisdiction. Suggestions that there has been inconsistency, for example, with decisions taken by the Equality Tribunal, do not stand up to scrutiny when one looks also at the inconsistencies one finds within Distinct Court decisions, which are not published and are hard to track. At least the Equality Tribunal publishes its decisions and it is much easier to get a clear picture of the jurisprudence.

We have also noted the evidence of the Equality Authority, which is that where there has been discontent with a decision of the Equality Tribunal, there is the possibility of appeal to the Circuit Court. That mode of redress has not been actively pursued and we consider it inappropriate to suggest a change to a jurisdiction, especially where under the existing structures decisions of the Equality Tribunal can be challenged by recourse to the Circuit Court. I ask my colleague to deal with four other recommendations with which we are particularly concerned.

Your ten minutes have concluded, so I ask Mr. Herrick to speak for no longer than five minutes.

Mr. Liam Herrick

I thank the committee for inviting us to address it on this very important issue. I will deal briefly with some of the other recommendations in both the interim and final reports with which we have difficulty.

With regard to the recommendation to alter the discretion of licence holders, we have particular difficulty with the provision to increase the discretion to refuse people that were drunk, subjectively judged by the licence holder, on prior occasions. This provision will mean that licence holders will have discretion, which they already possess, to exclude persons who are intoxicated on a premises. Members of the committee will be aware that there is a great deal of public concern that this law in relation to publicans not being allowed serve persons already intoxicated is applied unevenly around the country. We have no difficulty with the legislation. However, any provision to exclude people who were previously drunk on a premises is in our view open to being applied in a discriminatory and disproportionate manner. We find it a curious and possibly dangerous provision.

The second objection with which we find objection is greater discretion to exclude groups of persons. We note that the two representatives on the Commission on Liquor Licensing from the Department of Education and Science and the National Youth Council of Ireland expressed particular concern that this could be used against young people, but also was likely to be used in a discriminatory manner against particular groups. We have a particular concern with regard to ethnic and racial minorities. There is a high level of public awareness of the issue of Travellers being excluded from licensed premises, but we again emphasise to the committee that there have been cases taken against licensed premises on almost all the other nine grounds of discrimination, including race and young people.

We make the more general point that any proposals to extend the discretion of licence holders to exclude persons from premises is likely to have a detrimental effect on persons with disability. The Equal Status Act currently provides that licence holders must take reasonable measures to accommodate people with disability in terms of access to and service in pubs. Although there has been only a small number of cases thus far, it is well accepted that it is a very serious problem in terms of people with disabilities having access to pubs, night-clubs, hotels and restaurants, and there is likely to be more cases in the future.

With regard to the commission's final report, two matters arise. In relation to children and young people, the final report recalls the earlier examination of this issue in the second interim report and it recommends that licence holders should be permitted by law to exclude 15 to 17 year olds from premises. We accept the legitimate concern of all of us in Irish society to address the problem of underage drinking. However, taking particular note of the ODEI ruling in the case of Maughan v. The Glimmerman, we consider that the imposition of a blanket ban on children by licence holders would be unacceptable.

Similarly, any measures to control the presence of persons under the age of 18 years in licensed premises should be on a statutory basis and should be proportionate. It should not be left to the discretion of individual licence holders. We consider this a matter properly for consideration by the Oireachtas and not for the discretion of individual licence holders.

The commission recommends that a national age card should be introduced as the only acceptable form of identification to authenticate age. We believe that as well as being discriminatory, this is likely to be unworkable in practice. For example, we would raise the simple issue of non-nationals, including tourists, who will not be able to posses the national age card, not being resident in the State. It appears from the proposal that their other forms of identification would be unacceptable. This would mean forcing Irish people to have national age cards while not enforcing it on non-nationals. It would create all kinds of logistical difficulties and we do not consider it to be a necessary measure.

We consider that the existing law is already adequate to deal with the problem of underage drinking if adequately enforced. We accept the concerns, many of which are acknowledged in the work of the commission, that existing legislation in this area is not being implemented effectively. We believe that the current position where the onus is on the licence holder to ask a person he or she believes may be under the age of 18 years to authenticate his or her age, is a workable and adequate system if enforced. We believe there is no difficulty with people having to give proof if they are asked. However, making identification, and possession thereof, a mandatory issue and making it a criminal offence not to possess takes a different direction. We note that the Minster has expressed concern about the type of society that would arise where mandatory identification was necessary.

We believe that the issue of access to public houses, night-clubs and restaurants is essentially one of equality with an equality remit. There are special circumstances with regard to licensed premises. That is why section 15(2) of the Equal Status Act recognises the special requirements of licensed premises, but it is an equality issue with a licensing element rather than being a licensing issue with an equality element. We believe the entire tone of the interim report clearly displays a bias against the Equality Authority and the Equality Tribunal that is unacceptable. The representative of the Department of Education and Science who sat on the Commission on Liquor Licensing expressed his strong objection to a committee established by the Government publicly criticising the workings of a statutory body. That is a pertinent and cogent point and is one we wholeheartedly support.

Thank you, Mr. Herrick. I welcome Mr. O'Keeffe, the new chief executive of the Licensed Vintners' Association, and wish him well in his job. His predecessor often appeared before the committee and I look forward to meeting him here on a regular basis. I invite Mr. Towey, chairman of the LVA, to make the presentation.

Chairman, I would like to establish the difference between the Licensed Vintners' Association and Vintners' Federation of Ireland.

Mr. Donal O’Keeffe

The Licensed Vintners' Association is a representative body for the licensed trade in the greater Dublin region.

The Vintners' Federation of Ireland represents approximately 6,000 pubs outside the greater Dublin area. There is a geographic divide between the LVA and ourselves.

Mr. O’Keeffe

We have circulated a copy of our submission and I do not propose to go through it laboriously so I will pick out the key points. We were members of the Commission on Liquor Licensing and our members are directly involved in the licensed trade in Dublin. Accordingly, we feel we are in a particularly strong position to discuss the issues raised by the final report. To this end, we were delighted to accept the invitation of the Chairman to attend.

We broadly welcome the recommendations of the Final Report of the Commission on Liquor Licensing. This is evidenced by the fact that we fully support 43 of the 59 recommendations. There are an additional seven recommendations which we feel require some clarification before we can take a position, while there are nine recommendations to which we are opposed. We are strongly supportive of the main findings of the report of the commission. Appendix 1 sets out our position on each individual recommendation and provides a brief rationale for this position. For conciseness I will pick the three main recommendations to which we are opposed and which are centrally important to us and go through our position in detail.

The first is recommendation No. 2, which relates to licences in areas of high population that are under-pubbed. Principally, we are unclear about the objective of this recommendation. We can deduce three possible objectives, namely increasing access in under-pubbed areas, improving social control or law and order benefits and further deregulation of the licensed trade. I will set out our position in detail on each possible objective. The first is increasing access in under-pubbed areas. It is important to recognise that since the 2000 Act, there is nothing to prevent the movement of licences into under-pubbed areas. This is reflected in the fact that an additional 26 new licences have been granted in the Dublin area since summer 2000, principally in the city centre. Accordingly, licence availability is not a constraining factor and licence cost is no longer the obstacle it was once. It is important to remember licences maintain a clear incentive on the part of licensees to trade in a responsible manner for their own self-interest and for the process of licence renewal.

In the Irish cultural context, the opening of additional cafe-pubs will result in them operating essentially as pubs. Equally, there is nothing to prevent the opening of such cafe-pubs today. The principal difficulty in opening a new licensed premises in Dublin lies around planning permission, mainly as a result of objections by local residents. The proposal to supply cafe-pub licences will do nothing to overcome this and is likely to result in further over-pubbing of the city centre where local resident objections do not tend to be the same factor as in the suburbs.

This recommendation represents an exercise in social engineering and it takes no account of the Irish sociocultural context. Such cafe-pubs will essentially operate as pubs. Our alternative is to maintain the licence transferability under the Intoxicating Liquor Act 2000, but introduce a cap on the size of proposed new outlets. This will facilitate ongoing licence mobility while preserving the capital value of licences. It will also foster the intended objective of smaller premises. However, planning policy is probably the best vehicle to cap pub size, rather than using the licensing laws per se.

The second possible objective of recommendation No. 2 is improving social control or law and order benefits. We assume it is based on the view that smaller bars are easier to manage and control than larger outlets. We doubt there is scientific objective evidence to support this view and strongly assert that larger Dublin pubs are professionally managed, have superb infrastructure in terms of communications and staff security and have the necessary training and resources to manage their premises properly.

However, it is interesting to examine the reasons people frequent larger premises. We have taken a look particularly at the 18-24 year demographic because it is the principal consumer group for these pubs. The three principal reasons are crowds, atmosphere and music and entertainment. Separately, we have research to show that the city centre is their location of choice rather than the suburbs. Arising from this demand, larger premises have emerged, particularly in the city centre. We are certain this demand will be maintained in the medium term and will not be influenced by an increased number of small pubs. We strongly believe that 18-24 year olds will not frequent these proposed establishments and, consequently, argue that such pubs will do nothing to improve law and order issues. Conversely, by increasing the number of licensed premises international experience strongly suggests that there will be an increase in alcohol consumption. Additionally, a proliferation of licences will present greater control problems for the Garda.

It should also be recognised there have been social developments. Principal among these is the recent trend towards drinking in the home and other uncontrolled environments. Almost one quarter of all adults now drink at home at least once a week, compared to just 16% five years ago. An important, under-recognised and under-researched complicating factor is the combination of drink and drugs. We believe this is a significant contributory factor to explaining heightened tensions and aggression in city centres in particular. As an alternative, we recommend strong enforcement of existing legislation and the rapid implementation of the agreed recommendations by the commission on admission and service. Enforcement of strong sanctions on the individual is an essential step in improving public order. There needs to be a counterbalance to the weight of legislation that is on the publican and, equally, the individual must take responsibility for his or her actions. We attach, in appendix 3, our recommendations to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health and Children in this regard.

The final possible objective of recommendation No. 2 is the concept of deregulation. As previously pointed out, the Intoxicating Liquor Act 2000 has removed limitations on the number of licences in Dublin and, in addition, has had the effect of halving the value of a licence, thereby, effectively eliminating licences as a barrier to entry. Second, it is well researched and accepted that increasing the number of outlets selling alcohol increases availability and leads to further problems with alcohol abuse.

We believe price competition is extreme in the licensed trade and consumers are unlikely to benefit further from greater deregulation. Finally, experience in the UK and elsewhere shows that standards will generally fall under total deregulation. Given that Dublin and Irish pubs are generally acknowledged as among the best in the world, it would be a disaster, from a national economic and tourism standpoint, to allow standards to slip. Our alternative is to continue to support the thrust of the 2000 Act in terms of maintaining availability and mobility of licences while simultaneously maintaining controls on the total number of premises. That summarises our position in regard to that important recommendation on cafe-pubs.

The second issue we would like to address in some detail is the hours of trading, recommendation No. 3. The commission does a very good job in setting out the arguments for and against the retention of current trading hours. We do not propose to replicate them here. However, we wish to outline that our opposition is principally based on the fact that there is a demand for the current trading hours in city centres and tourist locations throughout the country, that late night shopping takes place on Thursdays and is of benefit to both shoppers and staff of retail outlets and, as acknowledged by the Garda in the Final Report of the Commission on Liquor Licensing, many of the public order offences occur after 3 a.m. which is much later than the 12.30 a.m. closing time on Thursday nights. We do not believe the 12.30 a.m. closing time is a factor in this law and order issue. We believe that very late night venues that run to 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. play a substantial role in absenteeism on Fridays rather than the 12.30 a.m. pub closing time. Accordingly, our recommendation is that the current hours of trading be retained and, in addition, we propose greater scientific research to establish fully the key contributing factors to absenteeism on Fridays.

The third recommendation on which we wish to set out our position in detail is No. 37 regarding making alcohol available in residential accommodation. We acknowledge the high standards of registered guesthouses. However, we feel that the granting of an additional 500 licenses to such guesthouses, together with the potentially large demand from upgrading bed and breakfast places, would greatly increase access to alcohol. Such a move has huge implications for the control and policing of such licences and, accordingly, has a very large impact on Garda resource requirements. We believe that the courts are the most relevant authority for deciding on licensing issues and do not feel it is appropriate for Bord Fáilte definitions to be taken into account in licensing decisions. It would appear anomalous in the extreme that amendments to Bord Fáilte definitions would result in amendments to the liquor licensing code. We propose that the existing licensing arrangements with respect to guesthouses be maintained.

There has been much debate about alcohol abuse. However, much of it has focused on the role of the publican. We acknowledge fully our responsibility in this regard and see ourselves as central to any proposed solutions. However, focusing solely on the publican is very narrow and simplistic and excludes a variety of contributing factors.

The issue of alcohol abuse is complex and needs to be addressed at a number of levels, including Government, with at least four Departments centrally involved, the Garda, the education system - teachers and schools - and the alcohol industry, of which we are a central part and in which we are committed to playing our part towards the responsible use of alcohol. The rapid development in socio-economic conditions that has taken place in the past five years must be recognised. Family, particularly parents, have an important role to play in this issue, as obviously do the individuals themselves. We are committed to working with Government and the other sectors of the industry to deal with this issue.

We welcome fully the majority of the findings of the Commission on Liquor Licensing and look forward to working with the relevant Departments and State agencies on their implementation. Equally, we are confident that we can work together to reach mutually agreeable positions on the limited number of recommendations with which we take issue.

I call on the representatives of the Vintners' Federation of Ireland to make their presentation. Mr. Tadhg O'Sullivan is not new to us and I am sure we will see him again in years to come. I also welcome the president and chairman of the legislation sub-committee.

Thank you Chairman. I note your welcome to my colleague, Donal O'Keeffe, as the new man. I hope that does not imply that I am the old man.

The Vintners' Federation of Ireland represents just over 6,000 pubs throughout the Republic of Ireland. We do not represent the pubs in Dublin city and county. They are represented by our colleagues in the LVA. The vast majority of our membership are small, family-run, privately owned and managed pubs.

We welcome the opportunity to discuss the issues surrounding the Final Report of the Commission on Liquor Licensing. We may have issues with the presentation made earlier by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties but I suspect that will be for another day. Our understanding was that this would be simply in relation to the final report of the commission.

We wish to place on record our thanks to you, Chairman, and your Oireachtas colleagues for the opportunity because the Commission on Liquor Licensing made in all almost 140 recommendations over its four reports. Almost 90% of those recommendations were actually made by consensus which is no mean achievement when one considers the make-up of that commission with 20 members who could be said to have very widely differing and contrasting views. The Vintners' Federation of Ireland, as with the LVA, was represented on the commission. I sat on it on behalf of the VFI.

I am happy to say that we support the majority of the 140 recommendations. We strongly believe that the majority of them will be ultimately to the benefit of society, and we believe they highlight some of the problems that exist, particularly in regard to the abuse of alcohol and inconsistencies in the law. We believe the commission put forward proposals which will ultimately be to the benefit of society in the main.

Turning to the 59 recommendations of the final report, I do not propose to delay the deliberations of the joint committee by going through these recommendations one by one. Suffice to say that they are in the main acceptable. There are a few that need further clarification. As an example, the recommendation in regard to hours of trading would seem to imply that many of the difficulties associated with alcohol abuse over the past 12 years are somehow related to the three hours by which pub licensing hours were extended in 2002. While the members I represent may have mixed views in respect of Thursday night closing, we believe that it is wrong to imply that the change is going to have some sort of an impact on the use, misuse or abuse of alcohol. We also have some concern that local authorities can insist on different closing times in different jurisdictions, perhaps even within a few miles of each other. Drogheda is a case in point where there are two county councils north and south with Drogheda Borough Council in the middle. All three could take an entirely independent position, thus confusion reigns with the possibility of an encouragement to drink and drive.

There is clearly a requirement for clarification in respect of the commission's report in respect of mixed trading. Even in the recommendations of the commission, it is clear that there is confusion surrounding what premises may be opened and to what extent they may trade when they have either on or off-licences. We have dealt with this in some detail in the submission which has already been circulated to members.

We are broadly in favour of the recommendation in regard to registered clubs, but we draw particular attention to recommendation No. 34 which asks the Oireachtas to take account of the manner in which clubs commercially exploit the privileges granted to them under section 29 of the 2000 Act.

We broadly support the recommendation with regard to restaurant licences, but we find the suggestion of a provisional licence for a restaurateur who wishes to sell alcohol to be somewhat strange and ambiguous. To legislate for such a system will, we believe, require very exact wording and would almost inevitably lead to confusion and abuse.

We broadly support the position in regard to franchising and wholesale licences. We support the idea that all matters relating to licences should be dealt with by the District Court, although the issue of a District Court closing a premises for up to 14 days as a consequence of a local objection seems to us to be a recipe for vexatious complaints and objections, some of which we are already familiar with throughout the country.

There are, we believe, sufficient powers available to the courts to be exercised at the request of the Garda to deal with any real problems that exist. The new public order Bill which is currently being considered by the Oireachtas will further enhance those powers. We suggest therefore that perhaps recommendation No. 51 is unnecessary.

We support the recommendations dealing with enforcement, particularly the need for clarification where alcohol is purchased by youngsters using false or forged identity cards. We fully support the recommendations in regard to planning, public order issues, training, tax certification, rate relief for licensed premises in remote rural areas, and have a strong objection to alcohol being sold through vending machines.

We are left therefore with four items about which we wish to express concern. The first of these, recommendation No. 2, has been dealt with already by my colleague from the LVA. It suggests the introduction of a new licence for premises of a particular size in areas of high population which are under-pubbed. This is worth repeating - we are talking about premises in areas which are under-pubbed. We have dealt with this in detail on pages 6 and 7 of the submission.

In reading the report of the commission it is clear that the major items discussed by it were first teased out by a representative grouping on the sub-committee It was believed that consideration would be given to every possible recommendation. We have a sub-committee dealing with all the major issues which were the subject of recommendations, from registered clubs to hours of trading and franchising. However, this particular matter was dealt with differently. At the opening of the penultimate meeting of the commission, a draft of the report was presented to us as an effective fait accompli. While consideration was given to it at that meeting and again at the final meeting, there was clearly no consensus. The majority of people attending the final meeting of the commission expressed reservations about Ireland being already over-pubbed. I recently spoke to the chief executive of Barnardo’s, who has a particular interest in youngsters, who asked the pertinent question, “Where in Ireland is there a place that is under-pubbed?” Do we seriously need new licences when we have 13,000 licences for a population of less than 4 million people?

Experience throughout the world shows that increasing the availability of alcohol and the number of alcohol outlets has a direct consequence on increasing consumption and abuse. It is particularly true in the English-speaking countries held up as examples, such as Australia and Canada. We can look closer to home, at Scotland, the greater Manchester area and the Newcastle area. In each case the abuse of alcohol has exploded in line with the increase in outlets and a dramatic fall in standards. Even the Competition Authority, that bastion of competition, accepts that increasing the number of licensed outlets will increase consumption and abuse.

There are 13,000 licences for a population of less than 4 million people, which means a licensed premises for every 300 people. That has to be the highest concentration of premises in the world. Recognition of the fact that we have too many premises first brought the Legislature to introduce a cap on the number of licensed premises in Ireland in 1902. The 1925 commission went even further, recommending a reduction in licences and a process by which that could be done. In neither 1902 nor 1925 were decisions made in the interests of the licensed trade. Decisions were made in the interests of society and to curb the abuse then rampant. The manner in which these recommendations have been made undermines the credibility of the work of the commission, which is a great pity.

It has been suggested that it has been intended to curb the growth of the superpub but it will not do so. The growth of the superpub can be curbed through two simple measures, namely planning legislation or legislation restricting the floor area of any new licensed premises or relating it to the floor area of the licensed premises from which it was taken.

More importantly, this recommendation seems to arise out of a desire for social engineering, as my colleague said. It has been suggested that we could somehow create continental type café bars. Such social engineering is impractical and impossible. At present anyone with a seven day licence or even a wine licence could open such a café if they wished. There is no demand so nobody rushes to meet that demand. Hundreds of people sitting on sidewalks consuming coffee and wine on the Continent is a lovely romantic notion, but such a practice would be illegal in Ireland and even if it were not, the climate would prevent it from happening. The commission's acknowledgement that this recommendation was marked by a considerable divergence of views is an understatement. It was rushed through at the eleventh hour with nothing like the appropriate level of discussion or consultation and seriously undermines the credibility of the commission.

Regarding the distant sales and delivery of alcohol, the commission proposed a new annual licence which means someone with a licensed premises in west Cork could deliver alcohol to Donegal, Dundalk and Dungarvan in unspecified amounts, via unspecified carriers to unspecified recipients. If this were introduced into legislation it would be a recipe for absolute chaos. There would be no control over the source, method of delivery or recipients of the alcohol. Our existing problems with secondary purchasing and delivery would be exacerbated out of all proportion. There would also be implications for the Exchequer.

The licensed trade in Ireland is one of the most tightly regulated of all trades. There is legislation governing the quantity of alcohol which may be sold, the persons to whom it may be sold, the times at which it may be sold, and even the stamped size of the glasses in which it may be sold. To introduce such a recommendation as this into legislation would turn existing legislative and Exchequer controls on their heads. At present we have thousands of people crossing the Border and going by ferry to France in lower taxed jurisdictions. This is legal but the provision of licences to enable distant sales and delivery would inevitably mean the provision would be used to source product with serious implications for the Exchequer. There are also potentially serious implications for young people, who may well receive delivery of the alcohol at or outside the home.

My colleague referred to residential accommodation. We maintain we already have far too many licences in the country. A facility enabling every guesthouse to acquire a licence, even if that were ostensibly to provide alcohol for their guests, would double the number of licences overnight. Given the location and number of these guesthouses the gardaí could not control them no matter what resources were provided. There is also the potential for loss of revenue to the Exchequer as well as the potential for abuse.

The issue which gives us the greatest concern, alongside the recommendation of more licences for areas which are under-pubbed, relates to children and young persons. We fully support the commission recommendation on children and young persons. The issue of abuse of alcohol by children and their place in both society and the pub has been the subject of debate and recommendations by each of the four licensing commissions. In our recent discussions with the Joint Committee on Health and Children we pleaded with the Oireachtas to help us protect children. We pleaded for the introduction of a mandatory age card, which would seriously support our members in exercising their responsibility. To suggest that this will discriminate against visitors to Ireland is to ignore the practical reality in countries all over the world where visitors would not necessarily have an age or ID card particular to that jurisdiction. They may have an age card, ID or passport from their own jurisdiction which is quite acceptable. We pleaded with the Oireachtas for help with a situation in which the right of a parent to keep a child on a licensed premises until 1 a.m. supercedes the rights of the child or licensee.

We draw attention to the comments of the Equality Authority in the wake of the notorious Glimmerman case, which has caused serious problems for our members. The authority's statement that it is no longer possible or legal for a licensee to ask someone to remove their child from the premises, irrespective of how long that child has been on the premises, indicates a need for action from the Oireachtas. A situation where a licensee can be fined €1,000 for refusing to sell a bottle of spirits to a young person in an effort to curb alcohol abuse is outrageous. A licensed premises is no place for a child save in exceptional circumstances. We accept that a parent should be allowed to bring a child into a licensed premises for a pub lunch or to break a journey. A parent may socialise in a pub while accompanied by a child but to suggest that a licensee has no control over groups of children running around a pub at all hours is no way to protect the interests of the child or of society.

The Intoxicating Liquor Act 1988 protected both licensee and child and is dealt with in our submission. It permitted the licensee to allow the child on the premises if accompanied but permitted him or her to refuse to allow the child on the premises in the later hours of the night. The Glimmerman case has turned this on its head. We understand the Oireachtas is to change that legislation and we urge the earliest possible change. We also strongly recommend the introduction of an age or ID card which would help our members to tackle underage alcohol abuse. We recognise that children acquire alcohol in many places, starting at home. If the Oireachtas seriously wishes to tackle the problems of under-age drinking and abuse by the young, we need an age card. We also need clarification of precisely what is meant in legislation by a child. In some legislation enacted by the Oireachtas a child is someone under 15 years of age while in other legislation a child is someone who is under 18 years of age. There is confusion and that needs clarification. We need to provide for prosecution for those who forge ID cards - many such cards are currently available throughout the country - or dupe licensees into providing alcohol on the basis of forged, false or otherwise inappropriate age cards. A case was mentioned today where forged passports were used, yet the licensee was the person prosecuted and convicted.

Abuse of alcohol by the young is something we all must tackle. We are asking the Oireachtas to help us, to give us the powers to tackle it and help us to live up to our responsibilities.

I wish to raise a couple of issues. One relates to the perception that the hard fought and hard won equality legislation is being rolled back. It is not just the view of the ICCL. A number of groups were in with us recently, including the National Youth Council, Pavee Point, Pioneer Total Abstinence Association and the National Youth Federation. The rolling back of the equality legislation is very dominant in this entire discussion. Mr. O'Sullivan is kicking it to touch but, unfortunately, it is not a matter that can be fully kicked to touch. It is a matter of great significance to Members of the Oireachtas, other interested bodies and, I am sure, to those before the committee.

The other issue I want to raise relates to the responsibility of publicans to refuse drink to people who are intoxicated. Does one have to lie flat out on the floor before one is refused drink? I was in a few pubs in the country during the week and there were people in them who, in my opinion, should not have been served drink. Publicans do not accept their responsibility in relation to the amount of drink being consumed by young people in particular. As a result these people come out onto the streets, feel macho and cause problems.

Ms Reidy

On the issue of rolling back the legislation, our concern is that the proposals would offer discretion in a couple of areas, first, to refuse people because of prior behaviour and, second, because of groups. The third issue relates to young people between the ages of 18 and 23 carrying a mandatory ID card. We are concerned that this rolls back the equality legislation. The current equality legislation includes a provision that allows people to be excluded if they are being violent. The provision also covers one's gender, age or ethnic background. The proper enforcement of the law as it stands addresses the problems as a result of the abuse of alcohol. To give a wider discretion to publicans to refuse admission or service simply on the basis that they believe one might do something will undermine the whole objectivity which underlies the equality legislation. The equality legislation which was introduced in 2000 has just recently been enforced. While there will not be teething problems with the legislation, there will be a settling period while people get used to having the legislation enforced against them, which is now happening. To treat that reaction to new legislation as an immediate cause for amendment would completely undermine hard fought for legislation.

Mr. O’Keeffe

I want to make it clear that neither the LVA nor the publicans we represent condone discrimination in any shape or form. We take issue with the tone that we are discriminatory in our approach. We are responsible businessmen trying to run a business in our own long-term interests and we are not concerned about day-to-day issues in that regard. Many of the issues now emerging regarding under-age drinking were well signalled during the debate on the equality legislation. Based on the long experience of our members, and in the interests of managing alcohol abuse among the young and the orderly management of premises, we feel these discretionary rights are very important tools to allow us manage these issues. They are central to the long-term good of the youth of the country, which is the view we take.

Perhaps we can hear from Mr. O'Sullivan on the equality issue.

It is important to deal with a suggestion from the Irish Council for Civil Liberties that the nine grounds on which discrimination is being prohibited are the subject of a vast array of claims before the Office of the Director of Equality Investigations. I have the report and the cases taken include gender, one out of 641; Traveller community, 80%; race, 2%; disability, 4%; age, 2%; marital status, one case; family status, eight cases; sexual orientation, nil; religion, three and multiple grounds, 3%. This does not suggest there is widescale abuse on all nine grounds or that a vast array of cases is being taken on these grounds.

To suggest that the full implementation of the recommendations of the Liquor Licensing Commission would in some way draw back the Equal Status Act and add to discrimination is to suggest the recommendations have not been read, considered or understood. I have the 16 recommendations. The circumstances in which admission or service may be refused should be set out clearly in legislation. Recommendation No. 1 seeks to ensure licensed premises operate in a peaceful and orderly manner in the interests of public order. Existing legislative provisions should be amended to increase penalties for drunken persons refusing to leave licensed premises and licence holders should be able to refuse admission and service to persons who have been expelled previously from the premises for reasons of drunkenness. I do not think that is rolling back on the equal status legislation.

I will not ask Mr. O'Sullivan to go through all the recommendations. What about recommendation No. 9?

Recommendation No. 9 states that licence holders should have enhanced discretion to refuse admission or service in the case of groups of persons where there is any danger of disorderly conduct or harassment or improper behaviour towards staff or towards the safety of the premises generally.

One could perceive the increased discretion contemplated in the recommendation as a rolling back of the equality legislation.

One could if one wished to do so. I assure you, Chairman, it was not my intention to kick this issue to touch. As I said at the beginning, we came here to deal primarily with the Final Report of the Liquor Licensing Commission. That was our understanding so we were a little taken aback——

I accept that.

I will go further and write to you, Chairman, to specifically deal with the complexities——

I am delighted with that. I accept what Mr. O'Sullivan says and I await his written response. There is the question of serving people who are obviously drunk, but who can still stand.

A significant number of the claims before the Office of the Director of Equality Investigations——

This is separate from the equality question. This is where young middle class children, who are drunk——

Can I deal with it, Chairman?

A substantial number of the claims before the equality tribunal arose because of the refusal of licensees to serve people they believed were drunk. This is one of the problems we have with the legislation. We do not hold a brief for people who serve alcohol to people until they are falling down. That is not in the interest of the licensed trade or the publican and it is certainly not in the interest of his customers. We do not hold such a brief. We recognise that people, particularly youngsters, drink in several establishments. I have had the privilege of raising five of them so I speak with some knowledge. They will consume a certain level of alcohol before they leave home and will have naggins in their handbags and pockets when they go out so they will have a level of intoxication even before they go into the pub. This creates a problem for publicans. I am not a publican and I do not hold with publicans who would sell alcohol to my kids but I can recognise the difficulties they face.

Mr. Towey, would you like to say something before I ask members of the committee?

Mr. Towey

I endorse what Tadhg O'Sullivan has said. My association would have no truck with members or publicans who serve people who are obviously intoxicated. There is no doubt that is occurring in certain premises although we believe the vast majority of our members act responsibly in this regard.

Having said that, we are trying to address this issue. For example, attached to our submission is the draft of a code of conduct we are drawing up for our members. The first of these house rules is that intoxicated persons will not be served. When we finalise these house rules we will market them heavily among our members to train them to deal with these problems. We are conscious that there is a problem and we want to deal with it.

There is legislation in relation to publicans who serve people who are intoxicated. We advocate that the gardaí use their statutory powers. We would not defend a member of our association who serves people who are drunk.

I welcome the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, the Licensed Vintners' Association and the Vintners' Federation of Ireland. I thank them for their comprehensive presentations.

The Chairman has raised the question of rowing back on equality legislation and the ICCL has asserted that access is an equality issue. Could the vintners respond to that? From the figures issued by the Equality Authority it appears that 80% of allegations of discrimination in relation to access to public houses come from members of the Travelling community. Could Mr. O'Sullivan elaborate further in relation to this issue? Why does he think it may not be an equality issue? Members of the Oireachtas would be reluctant to see any elements of the Equal Status Act rolled back.

The ICCL mentioned the question of excluding people who had been previously drunk as being discriminatory. I presume that does not mean that the council disagrees with the present public order legislation which provides for the exclusion of persons who have been disorderly from premises and their vicinity.

The question of a blanket ban on children and how one defines a child was mentioned by all the groups. I am inclined to think the best way to deal with this difficulty is through legislation. Do the groups agree with me?

The ICCL is strongly of the opinion that it would be discriminatory to impose a mandatory national age card. How does the ICCL propose that the voluntary national age card be accepted by even a majority of young people? We have approximately 90,000 young people at present. How are we to promote the card if it is not mandatory? How would the ICCL respond to the current situation where in virtually every walk of life some form of identification is required? An identification card is mandatory in virtually every country in Europe and in the United States.

The vintners' associations propose that the status quo be maintained and feel that any problems which arise are not the fault of their members. Recent surveys claim that 50% of 15 and 16 year olds are binge drinkers and that two thirds are drinking regularly. They have to be getting alcohol in order to drink it. The only county in Ireland that enforces the law in relation to selling alcohol to under-age people is Mayo. If Mayo is able to enforce the law why is the rest of the country, and Dublin in particular, not doing so? Strong sanctions are available for serving drink to young people but they are scarcely enforced by the vintners themselves or by the gardaí. One of the remarks made by the chairman of the Liquor Licensing Commission is that no member of the commission could remember an instance of a case being taken for serving a person who already had too much to drink or a publican being charged in the courts for doing so. I am sure that is not the case but that remark was made by the chairman of the commission when he came before this committee. That element of the law is honoured more in the breach than in the implementation of it.

What are the views of the vintners' associations on the new legislation which is before the Oireachtas regarding the closing of premises that serve people who are drunk or disorderly?

Finally, there is the question of the traceability of alcohol sold from off-licences. Traceability would be a valuable tool in dealing with the improper sale of alcohol which ends up in the hands of young people. What are the associations' views on providing an element of traceability of those sales?

I welcome the three groups to the meeting. I strongly support the view of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and your view, Chairman, that there should be no rolling back of equality legislation. Many people, particularly members of the Travelling community, are discriminated against by members of the vintners' associations. In the majority of cases, Travellers feel they are not allowed into premises and the associations' members willingly discriminate against them. Is that the reality?

The issue of bouncers and security was not mentioned. Is it not a fact that there are premises in this city and throughout the country which have operated bad practice in regard to customers? Many of my constituents have been abused at doors by bouncers and doormen. Can something be done in that regard? Regarding people with disabilities, a great deal of money is being made in this business which I would like to see invested in the provision of more services for people with disabilities.

I do not come from the school of thought which blames publicans for all disruptive behaviour. People are responsible for their own behaviour. I agree with the comments on the 12.30 a.m. closing time on Thursday night. In relation to public order offences etc., people must accept responsibility for themselves. It was stated that public order offences occur mainly after 3 a.m. Where is the evidence of this? I receive many complaints from constituents in relation to anti-social behaviour around pubs and chippers at 11.30 p.m. and 1 a.m.

Does your opposition to the allocation of 500 licences to guesthouses relate to money and economics? A healthy food and drink approach would take us a long way. I disagree with the associations' comments on the provision of licences to guesthouses. We should go ahead with that. I agree with many of the issues raised by the associations, in particular concerning children on public premises after certain times. I am worried about discrimination in that area but I do not think that will happen.

Is there an urban-rural divide between the VFI and the LVA and why is that so? I do not think that could be good for business. Is there potential for the organisations to come together?

Areas like Scotland and Manchester were referred to in relation to increased consumption. We must conduct research in countries where consumption is low and where there is a much healthier attitude to alcohol. Society here needs to change. Do the LVA and the VFI think the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform is off his rocker when he speaks about opening cafe-type pubs here? Will they work? The issue of climate was mentioned in that regard. A culture exists in this country in regard to small quality pubs being the progressive way forward. We must also look at the serious crisis that exists in relation to our attitude to alcohol. Countries like France and Spain have healthy attitudes to alcohol. There is no binge drinking in those countries. Surely we should look at examples of good practice.

I, too, welcome our guests and I am conscious that we must move on. I noted what both organisations had to say in relation to extending licences and so on. They are concerned about controls and feel the Garda should be in a position to control what happens in pubs. Perhaps they can tell the committee a little about the controls currently in operation. What is their experience in relation to gardaí checking whether people are drunk on the premises and whether alcohol is being sold to under-age people? It appears that only publicans in Mayo are being caught for selling alcohol to under-age people. Is it not happening in many places? A case was highlighted in my local newspaper last week. A pre-debs function was cancelled at one premises as a result of the Garda informing the publicans that most of those due to attend the function were under-age. A second premises was booked and the Garda again intervened resulting in that pub cancelling the function. The third premises allowed the function to be held there but did not open the bar. To what extent do controls operate within licensed premises and to what extent do the gardaí exercise control?

The LFA presentation was humorous. Price competition was raised and it was said that the opening of more pubs would not affect competition. The report stated that price competition is already extremely intense in the licensed trade and that consumers are unlikely to benefit further in price terms from greater deregulation. I do not know where people from the LFA go for a drink but I recently went to a premises within the kick of a ball of where we currently are and was flabbergasted at the prices being charged for alcohol. A Bacardi cost €4.40; a coke to go with it cost €3, a total of €7.40 for a Bacardi and coke. These are the prices being charged in pubs where there is no live music or anything else. A large bottle of cider cost €6. Where is the competition? There can be no competition when we are being charged such prices. Perhaps you will shock us by telling us the purchase price of Bacardi, which to the best of my knowledge costs about €1 a shot. One is not doing too bad selling it at €4.40 a measure. The coke which is being sold at €3 a bottle did not cost €1 to buy. How can you justify saying there is competition within the pub business when those prices are prevalent in this city? There is no real competition and prices are not coming down. I do not want to be told your costs are high as I do not accept that.

Under-age drinking has been dealt with by my colleagues. I am concerned about the accessibility of alcohol to young people. I do not think the voluntary card system will work. I do not have the answers but I wonder what solutions will be put forward in regard to how one can control and limit the availability of alcohol to young people. We must address the easy access to large volumes of alcohol.

I welcome the group to this interesting debate. I will be brief as some of my questions have been asked already.

The Vintners' Federation of Ireland said it would like current hours to be retained. I have spoken to many members of the federation in Tipperary north. Some of the vintners find some of their customers arrive much later and that the till is not heavier or lighter as a result of the late openings. I am not sure how representative is that statement. Perhaps the federation could elaborate a little more when it responds.

Under-age drinking has been of great concern among all the groups we have met. Deputy Costello mentioned traceability. I am concerned about traceability in regard to monitoring the sale and consumption of alcohol within premises. I imagine it is a difficult exercise particularly at weekends. Publicans have a job to do and have to make money and pay staff. How do they monitor the sale and consumption of alcohol on their premises? On ID cards, are those before the committee aware of measures that could be put in place which might be more useful in ensuring those in the licensed trade are not serving under-age people? I am interested to know how to conduct such an exercise.

A number of people have not yet contributed. I will now ask Mr. Hanley to respond to the questions already asked.

Mr. Val Hanley

I want to deal with equality legislation. The reason we lobbied so hard with the licensing commission to try to get a balance in the legislation is simple. In my place in Galway, where I try to implement the Act with the best will in the world, I had an occasion, serving a group of 40 people, which turned out to be a riot situation. Some 20 gardaí had to be called, a party upstairs had to be cancelled and I had to pay for the DJ who cost €300. Now the party group upstairs is suing me for €2,500. The reality is that the legislation is not working in a balanced manner. We are not here to renegotiate it but to see that people understand what is happening.

In Galway, and all over the country, we believe that, along with rights, come responsibilities. The support and representative groups which represent people who seek their rights do not actually enforce responsibilities on these people. We are left to pick up the pieces. That is the reality of the equality Bill as it stands today. The licensing commission tries to balance that and to go some way towards addressing the situation.

I have nowhere to go. I will have to pay out the €2,500 or go to court and pay even more for legal fees. That means I am out about €3,500 because I try to implement something which is impossible to implement. I had to let these people in and let them then proceed to wreck the place. Some of my staff left and my customers did not come back for two months. My insurance went from €12,000 to €35,000 and I had nowhere to turn. I will have to leave that premises in the next couple of months because a person cannot pay that sort of overheads. We do not charge €7.30 for a Bacardi and coke in Galway either, it is a lot cheaper.

The point is that one cannot blame society for the activities of 40 people. Mr. Hanley is missing the point. He had an incident with a group of 40 people so he blames the 20,000 Travellers in Ireland.

Mr. Hanley

I did not say what group was involved.

One moment. Let us have Mr. Kealy.

Mr. Kealy

May I reply to Deputy Paul McGrath's question regarding controls in public houses and whether gardaí are active in the control of pubs. I am a publican on the north side of the city. Gardaí have quite a strong input there and have held meetings with local publicans on a regular basis. They have had people speaking on the Equal Status Act and they have warned us about under-age drinking. Contact is ongoing. Just last week they had meetings with publicans from the Ballymun area and warned them about putting people onto the streets drunk. They warned that they would take a strong view on that issue. As regards price competition, I sell a Bacardi for €3.25, a coke for €1.95 and a pint of Guinness for €3.25. I find it hard going to make a profit but it is north County Dublin.

Mr. Gibney

I am from that area of north County Dublin also and the gardaí have had a lot of meetings with us. As regards Deputy McGrath's concerns about Garda checks on licensed premises, gardaí are out and are calling into licensed premises and checking matters. They check ages in particular. I am a working publican and have experienced these checks on many occasions. I must say in defence of gardaí that there have been more checks in the last two years. In regard to price, there is great variance and that is the point of price competition. A person can pay a high price for a drink or can get it at a good value price.

I will now ask each group to respond in general to the questions asked, through their principal spokespersons.

Thank you for the opportunity. In regard to what Deputy Costello said, if one looks at the recommendations of the Liquor Licensing Commission, two or three of which I cited, they are not a question of rowing back on the Equal Status Act but of bringing responsibility to everybody on every side of the counter under the Act. Access to any service, whether a licensed premises or anywhere else, is an equality issue but there must be equality on both sides of the counter.

The person whose home is subject to entry by another person or group surely has some rights as well as responsibilities. The people coming through the door must have responsibilities as well as rights. While I have confirmed that 80% of the cases that have been taken against publicans were indeed by the Traveller community, we have found, and I think that the Office of the Director of Equality Investigations will now confirm this, that less than a third of those are successful.

The equality industry has begun to look more closely at how these cases have been dealt with because we have challenged them in the Circuit Court and we have sought the High Court's opinion on whether reasonable procedures were undertaken in the hearings. They have come out with their hands up and said, "Sorry, we got it wrong. We will pay costs and will vacate." This is the reality. Where our members have had the funds to challenge some of these cases in the Circuit Court they have been successful.

On the question of 15 to 17 year olds, we need a decision to deal with this issue and we are calling for legislation to help us decide the matter. We maintain that sections 31, 32, 34 and 35 of the 1988 Act actually sorted this problem for us but it has been turned on its head by the Glimmerman case.

We were asked how we promote the voluntary cards. There is no way of promoting voluntary cards. We have been engaged for 17 or 18 years now as a national organisation in trying to get voluntary age cards around the country. They have not worked and are not about to do so now. Members of the committee have said that a high proportion of 13 to 17 year olds are involved in binge drinking but I say that they are not binge drinking in pubs. They, for the most part, access alcohol in their own homes or the homes of their friends.

While it is true that there has been a high proportion of challenges and convictions in County Mayo, they presumably arise from enforcement by gardaí and the decisions of the courts. Let me give an example of one of those decisions. Three people who were found to have false age and ID cards on their persons were found drunk at 3 a.m. They blamed an individual licensed outlet for the receipt of that alcohol. The outlet was convicted and closed but the three who produced the false age and ID cards were commended by the judge. That is part of our problem.

The question of closure of premises where people near the premises are found to be disorderly has significant implications. To suggest that somebody could be responsible for the actions of somebody else because those actions take place in the vicinity of a person's premises, is an horrendous penalty to impose on someone who may be perfectly innocent. Traceability may be a concern in terms of a problem being created through a particular pub's patrons spilling out on the street. If the publican has some responsibility for that then clearly he or she as licensee has responsibility but if somebody leaves a premises at 12 o'clock and gets involved in a row two hours later 100 yards away I do not believe the individual publican can be held responsible.

With regard to traceability, it was accepted that the alcohol, especially where those involved are very young, is sourced mainly from off-licence sales. Traceability and marks on bottles or cans is totally irrelevant and of little use in those circumstances. The youngsters who gather in a park may have had the alcohol purchased legitimately for them. For example, we had the case in Clonmel where taxi drivers were prosecuted. Gardaí in Clonmel have visited every pub in the town to tell them to be extremely careful about selling alcohol to taxi drivers because they were accused of delivering alcohol to youngsters who were drinking in the local parks.

We must wind up shortly so I ask you to respond to any other major questions.

There is no major urban divide between the LVA and the VFI. The differences are historic. At one stage there were maybe 15 different organisations. In 1973 we reduced the number to two. Perhaps we will get it down to one in about 30 years.

Deputy Hoctor raised the point about Thursdays. We have mixed feelings in respect of the late hours. Some members want them and some do not. We have to represent both. I have given as many answers as I can in the time available.

Thank you for the brevity. I know there were many questions asked and I am sure there would be more to say if time was on our side.

Mr. O’Keeffe

To summarise, I would like to return to the point with which we started. We have issues with only nine of the 59 recommendations. We support the vast majority of them. I would like to leave the committee with the message that we take responsibility for our element of the trade. Proof of that includes the initiatives such as the responsible serving of alcohol programme, to which we have briefly alluded and the development of a code of practice which has been ongoing for over a year. The key point about that code of practice is that it is being developed in close consultation with the Garda and when finalised, will have the support of the Garda.

On the point of binge drinking among 15 to 16 year olds, they are not being served in Dublin premises. We made a submission to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health and Children and one of our key statistical objective points was the change in marketing and sales channels in Ireland for alcohol over the past ten years. They are getting their access to alcohol from other sources and we can make that information available to the committee if required.

There was a question from Deputy McGrath about my evidence for law and order issues which arise after 3 a.m. I received it directly from the report of the Commission on Liquor Licensing.

On the question as to whether café pubs will work, there are three or four pages in our report in which we set out the reasons we believe they will not work. There is no clarity as to their objectives. I emphasise that the anticipated objectives will not solve the problems.

We strongly believe that the right to refuse is our most powerful weapon in maintaining an orderly premises. It is essential for maintaining control on premises and on the consumption of alcohol and it is essential in terms of the future of the business.

Ms Reidy

Deputy Costello raised the issue of equality legislation and whether or not the exclusion of people for prior behaviour would be discriminatory. We have no objection to somebody being excluded if he or she has a prior conviction under a public order Act for disorderly conduct. Our concern is that when it is subjectively decided that a person may have been drunk, the publican will therefore exercise discretion to exclude that person although there may be no objective ground for believing that he or she will again be drunk or cause disorder or harm the staff. On the point of the use of discretion, our overarching problem with the recommendation of wider discretion is that discriminatory or anti-discrimination legislation or equality legislation is precisely there to protect the most vulnerable people who have been discriminated against in the past. It is therefore our concern that if the recommendations of a particular lobby group are being taken and acted upon, it will undermine the equality legislation and there will be one particular interest group which will be seen to be overturning equality legislation which protects the vulnerable groups who have historically been discriminated against.

We strongly support any measures which the commission puts forward to combat the problems associated with abuse of alcohol and the criminality which may arise from alcohol abuse. We believe that can be achieved in a non-discriminatory manner and that it can be compatible with equality legislation. That is the message we would like to give to the committee. I will ask my colleague to speak briefly on the question of the ID card because it was specifically raised.

Mr. Herrick

In regard to Deputy Costello's question about the issue of mandatory ID cards, the current situation is that if a publican believes a person may be under 18 years, he or she has a duty to ask that person for identification and if the person does not produce identification then the publican is perfectly within his rights to exclude him or her. The identification regarded as acceptable is a passport, driving licence or other forms of State identification or a voluntary ID card. We do not see that as a difficulty. The Equality Authority and the Equality Tribunal clearly stated that an objective belief that a person is under the age of 18 is a valid ground for refusing service.

On the other hand, a mandatory identification card system is not in place in the United States, Britain or Australia or other common law countries where it is an offence not to be in possession of identification cards, the reason being that the relationship between the citizen and the State is different in our common law heritage than in civil law countries. The Minister, Deputy McDowell, has addressed this point recently in the Oireachtas when he said that countries where they have mandatory identification are synonymous with histories of totalitarianism and very hostile relationships between individuals and the government. Many Deputies pointed out that the law in regard to under-age drinking is not applied evenly around the country and we believe that is a central issue. The invasion of people's privacy and civil liberties by introducing mandatory identification cards is both unnecessary and disproportionate.

I will allow Deputy Costello with a comment rather than another question.

I was glad to hear that there is a responsible serving alcohol programme. Is there any intention to have mandatory training for the trade? The code of conduct was mentioned. This training course would inform the trade about the law regarding under-age drinkers and how to deal with customers. Will anybody tell me how two thirds of 15 to 16 year olds are drinking regularly if nobody is selling them drink? Licensed drink must come from an approved outlet.

I will allow the first question. The second question is too deep.

Mr. O’Keeffe

Can I take the second question first because it is more immediate?

Go ahead.

Mr. O’Keeffe

There are three obvious channels to source alcohol in this country - at home, through the "off" trade or through the "on" trade. The "off" trade has a number of elements such as the standalone off-licence, the off-licence associated with a pub, a supermarket or garage forecourt. Issues of control in the "off" trade are great. Second, the issue around secondary purchasing of alcohol by adults or by older siblings who are over 18 to hand on to their younger brothers and sisters or friends is a serious issue.

As we stated in our presentation, given the heavy sanctions that are on Dublin publicans and on all publicans, regarding being convicted of serving under-age persons, they are not doing so.

There was a lot of talk during the meeting regarding under-age drinking and young people but there is also another reality which your members know about. There is a lot of anti-social behaviour and binge drinking by people over 30, 40 or 50. I have seen examples of this over the recent weekend.

I sympathise with publicans when premises are damaged but one cannot blame a whole community for the actions of a group of that community; people cannot be labelled. I hope those people who disrupted the premises were charged and some form of financial reward was given to the business concerned. If that did not happen then we have a major problem.

I ask Mr. O'Sullivan to respond to Deputy Costello. Have publicans any responsibility for the training of their staff and themselves?

We have been responsible for the establishment of the responsible serving programme with the Department of Health and Children and with our colleagues in the LVA. It is our clear intention to extend that as far as resources will allow us to do so.

On a mandatory basis?

We would welcome a situation where such training would be mandatory for renewal or granting of a new licence.

I was very brief in my questions.

You were.

The one question I asked was how is it monitored in the larger pubs at the weekends particularly where there may be people of questionable age? Is it possible to do it or are publicans just hoping for the best that they are serving people who are over the legal age limit?

Clearly it is difficult and it is exacerbated by the fact of older siblings and the sister's boyfriend or the boyfriend's sister or whoever, buying alcohol. Our major problem is often with parents buying alcohol in the pub for children. There is then a row because somebody decides that the kid is too young but it is my child and I am entitled to serve them alcohol. They are entitled to serve them alcohol in the home but they break the law by doing so and endangering the livelihood of the licensee by buying the alcohol for the child.

Thank you. The question of enforcement has come up. That is an appropriate time to conclude because the Garda Commissioner will come before us shortly and many items relating to enforcement will arise. I understand you wish to respond to a number of items and I would be delighted if you would write to the secretary so that it can be circulated to all the members.

I thank all of our guests who appeared today. I found it a very useful contribution to the ongoing debate on liquor licensing, as I am sure did all the other members. It was an opportunity for the members of the committee to meet members of the LVA and VFI and we have been meeting with the ICCL on an ongoing basis. I hope these ongoing discussions will continue into the future for the benefit of all the community and civil society generally.

I welcome the Garda Commissioner, Mr. Pat Byrne, the Deputy Commissioner, Mr. Noel Conroy and chief superintendent Dave Roche of the Office of the Garda Commissioner. I understand this may be one of our last meetings with the Commissioner who is due to retire at the end of July. I take this opportunity to congratulate you, Commissioner, on all the work you have done during your tenure as Commissioner. You are held in very high esteem not only by all the ranks in the force but also by the public at large. The accessibility that I have had as Chairman of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights and as a Member of the Dáil has been unequalled. I am very grateful to you for that accessibility and for at all times being available to any Oireachtas Member. I appreciate that and I thank you for it.

The Garda force has developed and improved during your tenure. It is a force that has particularly improved in community relations across the country. My constituency of Dublin South-Central is very much deprived socially and economically. However, the work and efforts of the gardaí on the ground, from superintendent down to garda, are first class. I highly commend the work they are doing under your leadership and I again congratulate you on that. I thank you for taking the time to appear before the committee today. If necessary, I hope we will be able to talk to you again before your departure as Commissioner.

As Members are aware, the Garda Commissioner, Mr. Pat Byrne, appeared before the committee on 17 December in the first of what the committee hoped would be regular meetings with the Commissioner and representatives of his office in order to update us on matters falling within his remit. I again thank you, Mr. Byrne, for co-operating with and facilitating us, and setting the precedent so that the Garda Commissioner is prepared to come in and answer to the elected representatives of the people.

The purpose of today's meeting is to discuss the issues relevant to the last annual report of the Garda Síochána 2001 and related matters, the crime statistics issued recently on both 2002 and the first quarter of 2003 and any other matters which you, Commissioner, or the committee considers relevant to the discussion. If you feel you do not have the resources to answer some of these matters here I would be obliged if you would answer them in writing afterwards.

I invite you, Commissioner, to make a presentation to the committee after which you can take questions from the members of the committee.

Mr. Pat Byrne

Thank you, Chairman, and on a personal basis I thank you for your kind remarks and I assure you of the co-operation of the Garda Síochána in the future. I have always found that in any of my dealings with Members of the Oireachtas I was met with courtesy and professionalism, which is as it should be on both sides. I am also a great believer in the whole aspect of accountability in terms of public officials. As regards my appearance before this committee and others, I have always been treated in that fashion and I want to acknowledge that. On a personal basis and on behalf of the Garda Síochána I thank you for your kind words.

There are a few things I would like to touch on in general before I take any questions. With your permission I will do that.

Please do.

Mr. Byrne

I may reiterate some points I made the last time, but I just want to lead in, in this way. Since the foundation of the State the Garda Síochána has served the people of this country through each decade in a professional way, in each decade having to deal with different challenges. The future as far as we are concerned holds for us many challenges as well. The public should understand that the Garda Síochána is Ireland's national police service. It is different from other police services in that it has national responsibility to Government. Certain aspects of the developments in the world today, particularly in Europe, impinge on the Garda and on policing. We have a major responsibility in terms of how we operate the law enforcement network across Europe, while indicating how things have developed. One should consider that the Garda has offices in a number of European cities for the purpose of dealing with today's challenges in terms of transnational crime.

It is important, when considering the police service, that one asks what people expect of the Garda Síochána. Do members of the force understand what is required of us? Are we delivering what is required? These fundamental questions, which I often ask myself when I hear debates and discussions on current affairs programmes, touch on all aspects of policing. I cannot comprehend some statements that are made or conclusions that are reached on such programmes. I often wonder if people understand what is happening in a particular area. Such discussions are part of democracy, free debate and free association, but it is very important that we understand where the Garda comes from, what is expected of it and how it can achieve what is expected of it in the future.

Members of the Garda Síochána have acknowledged change on a number of occasions. Change is constant as far as we are concerned. We have displayed the organisation's flexibility and resourcefulness in all areas of the force's remit over the years. Members of the committee are familiar with the strategic management initiative, which is a process of change within the public service. The initiative impinges very much on the Garda and will do so in the future as the force's operation is revamped. This is accepted by all members of the Garda, which is as it should be.

The challenges I see for the future bear repeating. Issues such as transnational crime, paedophilia, child pornography and trafficking in human beings were not considered to be appropriate or current to be dealt with in the past. We have dealt with trafficking in drugs for a number of years and we must now deal with cyber crime. We also need to address road safety issues. Driver behaviour on the roads is an important priority.

An issue which touches on the misbehaviour of society is what is sometimes called "public order". I refer to the lack of ordinary civilised behaviour on our streets by certain people. In essence, I am talking about civic responsibility. This issue boils down to something that concerns us all - the lack of a helping hand to a person in distress, which was always a part of Irish society. Why does this happen? One often hears that one should walk away and not get involved in situations, but such an attitude is no longer acceptable for any of us in terms of our responsibilities as citizens of this country. The Garda Síochána exists to enforce the law of the land, but it cannot do so without the support of the community on an ongoing basis. It is no longer acceptable for people to close their own doors, to say that everything is all right in their houses and to consider that everything outside is a matter for the Garda. Such matters pertain to all members of the community.

The bullies who create problems on the streets will succeed if society steps back and gives them a free hand. I assure the committee that the Garda Síochána, if it has the support of the community, will not step back from any confrontation that relates to enforcing the laws of this land and ensuring that ordinary and decent people can live in peace in their respective communities, something to which they are entitled. Members of the community are aware that society has been changed by what I describe as "a lack of shame". I have no difficulty in saying that there can be a lack of personal responsibility and, at times, a lack of parental responsibility. I am talking about a minority group of people, as the vast majority of law-abiding, respectful and civic-minded people behave as one would expect people to behave in a democratic society.

The aspects of Irish society I have mentioned affect policing on an ongoing basis. People must understand that the Garda Síochána, unfortunately, investigates at least 2,000 headline crimes each week. The force is also responsible for the national security of the State, which brings added responsibility and an increased demand in terms of the deployment of resources. I have already touched on the service we have to give to the European network on a daily basis in terms of law enforcement. The Garda operates 18 national specialist units, which support local units. They do not operate on their own or stand aside as individualistic units without realising that they have to support local units. For this reason, that branch of the organisation is designated as the national support services.

The Garda Síochána operates in 109 districts, each of which is headed by a superintendent. There are 703 Garda stations. The force cannot easily be compared with other policing services, for example those in the UK, as people too readily do. It cannot be compared with the PSNI, the London Metropolitan Police, or other police services across the UK because the Garda's remit is much broader than the remit of other forces in particular areas.

I would like to speak about crime for a moment before I speak about resources. Such issues are current ones and deserve attention from me. As the committee is aware, the 2002 headline crime statistics show that 105,000 such offences were committed. The 2001 figure was 86,500, which was somewhat similar to 1989. The Garda Síochána has been facilitated in recent times by its computer system, which provides a vast amount of information. Better and better-grounded statistics regarding crime are now available. When one examines the crime statistics for previous years, as I have done, one sees that there were 102,300 offences in 1983, which was before the introduction of the PULSE system. The figure for 1995 was 102,000. More quality information is now available to the Garda.

As far as I am concerned, the 2002 figures give cause for concern, as they indicated an increase in crime of 22%. The major issues that arise are an increase in thefts, such as larceny from the person, shops and cars, assaults and sexual crimes. There was an increase of 14% in thefts alone. If thefts, assaults and sexual crimes are taken together, one will note an increase of 18%. As I have said, the overall increase was 22%.

It is important that we introduce some sense of balance to this analysis. I am aware that one can do anything with statistics, but it is important to understand the situation, as I have said, so that we can have balance. When one studies the 2002 statistics, however, and bears in mind the population of this country - I know this matter was touched on earlier - one will discover that there was one indictable crime for every 37 people. The figure in 1996 was one indictable crime for every 36 people and in 1982 there was one indictable crime for every 33 people. I give those figures to provide a balance in terms of where we are at.

I do not for a moment suggest that we do not have a serious problem, but we should be very reasonable and cool headed in terms of how we address it. A knee-jerk reaction, such as saying, "This is the way to solve this", is not suitable. When one examines the figures for the last 20 years, one will find that crime fluctuates for many different reasons. If one wants to judge crime and crime trends, it is important that one examines an extended period of five to ten years to give one an indication of what is happening in society. One can then analyse the effect of what is happening in society regarding what is happening to crime figures.

The majority of people are more affected by misbehaviour on the streets than by organised crime. They are more concerned and have a greater fear of street crime. People are more impacted by what happens in their areas. As public representatives, committee members know that better than me. People are more affected by things that happen in their areas than by whether I, or my team, have a major success in intervening in a drugs, terrorist or organised crime operation. What we are talking about are issues of public order and the behaviour of society. The fear of crime is something with which we all have to deal.

Operation Encounter, which we set up in February of last year, has identified major areas of concern in terms of drunk and disorderly behaviour, being drunk and incapable, refusing to obey a Garda direction to go home and other public order issues. It also addresses assaults. When compared with those of last year, recent figures indicate that there has been an improvement in this area which pleases me greatly. It is long overdue. We must establish what we learned from the operation about what happens on the streets at night and its effect on families and society. Society has had a wake up call regarding these public order issues. The problem has developed in recent years and most people, unfortunately, are affected by it directly, in terms of their families, or indirectly. It is the men and women of the Garda who have to confront these issues on a nightly basis on our streets.

I wish also to touch on the matter of Garda resources. In the late 1980s and early 1990s there was a view that police services should aim to provide faster responses rather than people on the beat. I do not refer to Ireland only. The view was held right across the United Kingdom and in the United States of America. The importance of reassuring the public was underestimated and international research at the time suggested that foot patrol officers rarely came across a crime. It was thought, therefore, that their time could be better employed in other ways. It has now become a major problem in the United Kingdom, particularly for the London Metropolitan Police.

We had to prioritise our objectives to deal with the terrorist campaign which took place over 30 years as well as with the demand for a faster response to incidents. That was as it should have been at the time. While the Garda never lost sight of the ethos of community-based policing, developments in most policing areas took people off the streets. If we have to address a particular form of policing by utilising members of the Garda, gardaí come off the streets. For a number of years, community policing fora developed and we have addressed their demands by trying to get people back on the streets through bicycle patrols and horse patrols while maintaining the numbers on detective duties. While there is always a demand for more detectives, it must be balanced with the maintenance of a level of visibility on the ground of uniformed officers. It is a fact that uniformed visibility has a huge impact, but we cannot put a garda on every street corner.

Public order problems are not only about policing and enforcement, they are about society behaving well and policing itself. We police the State in support of the community. I have always maintained that the community polices itself and we are there to help it by providing what we can with the resources we have. In dealing with public order issues, we co-operate with licensed vintners and nightclubs. We have a policy which runs in each of our divisions whereby we engage with all stakeholders to ensure that large groups of people who come onto the streets of our towns and cities in the early hours of the morning are containable. We try to ensure that their behaviour is such that we can direct and control them. That has been achieved by reducing the sound of music, turning up lights before people leave clubs, increasing CCTV outside clubs and by making sure that local authority lighting is adequate. By working hand-in-hand with the stakeholders we have provided results. When I look at the figures for Operation Encounter, I see positive results with the trend going in the right direction.

There are 11,900 members of the Garda. I read and hear commentators and, sometimes, public representatives refer to 4,000 members of the force who they say are behind desks. I wonder where these 4,000 members are as I would love to find them. I could use them in other places. It becomes gospel when these figures are repeated. I heard on a radio programme recently that only 19 gardaí are available to patrol each county. These figures are repeated and repeated until they become facts. I ask myself if people really believe what is said. Does anybody pick up the phone to call the Garda press office to ask if these figures are true or untrue before carrying them forward into further debate? These figures are run with to the extent that I am beginning to believe that there are 4,000 gardaí sitting behind desks. I assure the committee that 4,000 members of the Garda are not behind desks. If sergeants in charge of stations, gardaí minding prisoners in stations, college training staff, surveillance experts, telecommunications experts, technical experts, computer experts, intelligence analysts, Garda transport drivers, command and control communicators, juvenile diversion officers, summons servers, etc., were included in the 4,000 and described as people behind desks, they would be outraged. They look upon themselves as carrying out vital policing roles. In any event, I do not have anything like 4,000 people among their number.

Whether we have enough gardaí or not is a question for another day. In terms of what is happening at the moment, it is important for people to understand exactly where we stand. For my own information, I had a survey carried out over a 24-hour period from 10 p.m. on 28 April to 10 p.m. on 29 April. I asked that it be established where everybody was in each of the Garda regions - the metropolitan, northern, eastern, western, south-eastern and southern regions - and the national support services which include the specialist units and the crime and security branch.

What was the result? What days of the week were involved?

Mr Byrne

The survey was carried out from a Monday to a Tuesday, which gives a fairer indication than using a weekend. The figures showed that 4,528 gardaí, or 41% of the organisation, were on operational uniformed duties in that period, that 1,171 gardaí, or 11%, were on operational detective duties and that 449 gardaí, or 4%, were on operational plain clothes duties. Members may ask who were these people in plain clothes if not detectives. They are members of the uniformed section who are put on specific duties in cities and towns to encounter pick pocketing and other behaviour of that type and to address public order issues requiring a covert rather than a uniformed approach. The figures should be divided by three as we have three shifts.

I have also accounted for those in administration, on training courses, on annual leave and on rest days. There were 2,395 people resting which would be the fourth shift. If the 6,000 officers outlined are divided by three, it means that at least 2,000 gardaí were operating over that period. To suggest otherwise is unfair to the people of this country. It gives the wrong impression of the Garda to suggest we hive off people from operational duties. It is important that people understand we make the maximum use of the resources we have at all times.

Recently, I noticed several other figures which I raised with some of my staff. These were the chances of being arrested for drunken driving, which are now one in 300, and the chances of being caught speeding, which are one in 1,400. I was intrigued by these ratios. Does this mean we are only catching one in 300 drunken drivers? If that is the case, we missed 3,600,000 drunken drivers minus 12,000, which is the number we caught. With regard to the speeding ratio of one in 1,400, members of the committee can work out the true figure for speeding offences from the fact that we detected 335,000 speeding offences last year. I will not repeat what my statisticians who examined this matter said, but they are somewhat confused about how the figures were reached.

This is a little like the figure which is often quoted regarding the seizure of drugs, according to which the number of kilograms of drugs seized by the Garda Síochána and the customs service amounts to 10% of what is coming into the country. How do we know this? Perhaps the figure amounts to 20%. 50% or only 2% of total drugs. Members may recall that this figure suddenly became gospel after it was used at a conference in America. I disagree with this analysis. It is incorrect and sends out a signal to drunken drivers that they have one chance in 300 of being caught. As well as sending out the wrong signal, its basis is also questionable.

As regards overall crime, members will have heard in recent times that a comparison of the crime figures for the first quarters of this year and last year indicate there is a downturn in crime as this year's figure is 9% below that of last year. I am glad the areas in which crime has declined are assault causing harm, theft from cars, burglaries and possession of drugs. In some areas the figures have risen, but overall the trend is downward. While it is still too early to judge, I welcome the downward trend and I am very pleased by it. However, the trend needs to be looked at over a more extended period to give an indication of what is actually happening in the whole area of crime statistics. I have said enough at this stage, so I will take questions.

I thank the Commissioner for his comprehensive overview of the current position, for which we are grateful. I will throw out a few questions, which he should bank as I propose first to bring in the Vice-Chairman. My first question relates to the categories of assault, sexual assault and larceny, particularly the first two for which the recorded figures have, as the Commissioner stated, increased. In 2000 some 1,983 cases of assault were recorded. This had risen to 5,688 by 2002, an increase of 200% over a two-year period. Some 1,070 sexual offences were recorded in 2002, a figure which increased to 3,147 in 2002, again an increase of about 200%. The increase in recorded cases of larceny over the two-year period was about 50%.

I am very concerned about assaults, particularly by young people whether drinking or not. Young people are afraid to walk the streets of Dublin and, I am sure, other cities. Parents are advising their children not to walk the streets between anything from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. to try to avoid getting beaten or mugged for no apparent reason. I do not know what we or the Garda Síochána can do about this. I presume it comes back to the community and the families of the perpetrators.

My other question concerns the age at which gardaí can be recruited which is currently, I understand, 17 years to 25 or 26 years. The areas for which this committee is responsible include equality and we take ageism as part of our remit. It would be desirable to have the age at which one can apply to join the Garda extended beyond 26 years. Does the Commissioner have any comments on this issue? Are moves being made to extend the age?

Another issue, which I raised previously, is the role of women in the police force. The Commissioner gave me a figure on a piece of paper which I subsequently lost showing a comparison between men and women in the Garda, whereas the most recent document I received only showed figures on women. According to this document, there are 17 women from the rank of inspector upwards, that is, superintendent, chief superintendent, Assistant Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner. Are measures being taken to increase this number? I ask the Commissioner not to answer these questions until we have heard from the Vice-Chairman of the Committee and spokesperson for the Fine Gael Party, Deputy Paul McGrath.

I welcome Commissioner Byrne, Deputy Commissioner Conroy and chief superintendent Roche and thank the Commissioner for his presentation. It is almost five months since he was here. On that occasion he indicated to us that he would reply in writing to a number of questions to which no responses were given on the day. Is there a reason we did not receive those responses?

My apologies, there have been written responses which have been circulated.

I have not seen them.

They have been circulated.

In that case, I offer my apologies as I have obviously not read all my post. Were they circulated today?

They were received very recently, on 1 May, and circulated soon after.

I have not seen them. I am interested in these replies because a number of interesting questions were asked. They were also submitted a long time in advance of the meeting and it took a long time to come back to us.

The Commissioner cut to the nub of what is concerning people when he asked what they expected from the Garda. He then mentioned several things. Earlier in his contribution he discussed the challenges facing the Garda, including transnational crime, paedophilia and so forth. He answered the question when he stated that in local areas people are concerned about whether they will be safe on the streets, whether their house will be robbed and their space invaded while they are out. I would like to hear his ideas in this area, for example, the question of how best one can counteract public order crime on the streets.

To return to what the Commissioner said earlier, how best can the Garda Síochána recruit the public to actively work with it to counteract these kinds of difficulties? As a public representative, many members of the public tell me they reported certain matters to the Garda and later discovered that, apparently, nothing was done about them. I know from having reported matters on occasions that the manner in which the Garda report back to the person who initiated an activity is poor. Would it not be good public relations to inform the individuals concerned that the matter, for example a suspected burglary, was checked and it was found, say, that the house in question was being broken into or, alternatively, that the person spotted was a son who was home from England? If this were done, people would at least feel that the Garda had followed through on the report of the person in question. While I am aware this would be time consuming, it would be worthwhile in terms of winning support from the public.

The Commissioner talked about resources and how they are allocated and used. His figure of 2,000 gardaí being on duty at any time is very interesting. In that context, a particular issue, namely, the repatriation of refugees, was raised at this committee recently. I was amazed to find that Garda escorts were sent with refugees being repatriated of which there were 521 last year. Of this group, for example, six were sent on a chartered flight back to Lagos and 20 gardaí travelled with them. A further 12 went on another chartered flight and 35 gardaí went with them. I am amazed that gardaí have to go on those trips and at the number of gardaí involved. It may be possible to justify it in other circumstances but once they leave Irish air space the gardaí have no jurisdiction or authority. Neither do they have any jurisdiction when a plane touches down in London or Lagos. Why, in a time of scarce resources, can another way not be found to have that job done? I can understand that, particularly on a chartered flight, some kind of security is warranted if there are a number of people, but surely this is one of the areas that could be hived off to the private sector. This would keep the trained and skilled personnel for more important duties. To return to the first point made, Mary Murphy, who is concerned about her local area does not want garda hours being taken up on the duties to which I have alluded. The number of garda hours utilised in repatriating those 520 refugees must be colossal. I have tabled a parliamentary question regarding this to the Minister for answer tomorrow. The 35 gardaí that went to Lagos would have been off normal duty for at least a week, if not more, in carrying out that function, a function which could easily have been filled by somebody else.

I too welcome the Commissioner, the Deputy Commissioner and chief superintendent. Perhaps the Chairman knows whether this is the last time the Commissioner will be before us. He is welcome to tell us his thoughts on that matter.

With inquiries the way they are at the moment one would never know.

Should it be his last time, I thank him for his contribution over the years. He did a good job and we appreciate it.

I have some question on the quarterly figures we have just received. I am glad we can get figures with such speed due to the PULSE system. Can he give us some indication of how the figures are put together that allows us to get the number of headline offences as quickly as this on a quarterly basis?

We are dealing with the 2001 report and we have still only received provisional figures for 2002. The quarterly figures we have been given do not include public order offences. Why are they not included, as these are the offences we would like to know about? Does the Commissioner have any idea of the enormous disparity between the 18% increase in 2001, the 22% increase in 2002 and then the dramatic reduction by 9% in the first quarter of 2003? It seems there is some anomaly in the system. People's behaviour does not change so quickly.

Why has the categorisation of some offences been changed since the PULSE system came into existence two years ago? Most people would regard as a relatively minor offences the theft of a pedal cycle but it is recorded as a headline offence while criminal damage to property, of which there is an enormous level, is not in this category although it would be regarded as being much more serious? What criteria are used in deciding what is a headline offence?

I agree with what has been said on the need for support from the community. I also agree with the point that essentially the community polices itself and that the Garda is there to assist. If that is the case, why has there not been far more emphasis on community policing? Why have structures not been established to enable the community to play a greater role? This would allow for better deployment of personnel and the most strategic use of resources on a structured basis. Are there any plans to expand the informal community policing fora?

Before the Commissioner came in there was a discussion on the issue of intoxicating liquor and its abuse. It appears the law is not enforced on alcohol abuse in regard to minors throughout the country except in the famous county of Mayo which has a fabulous track record in dealing with the matter. No other county seems to deal with that serious offence at all. Why do publicans not appear before the courts in regard to serving excessive alcohol to customers on their premises? The recent public order statistics for 2002 that were given on a provisional basis show there has been a huge increase in public order offences in the vicinity of public houses. Why is there not a greater Garda presence dealing with the high profile assaults that have taken place?

If Deputy Costello will allow the Commissioner to deal with these questions I will come back to him after the other members have spoken.

I have two more questions. Will the Commissioner inform us why there has been a reduction in the number of gardaí deployed in the majority of Garda stations in Dublin in the past 12 months?

It appears evident that the existing complaints mechanism is ineffective. Will the Commissioner give his views in regard to the appointment of an ombudsman or, as the Minister has suggested, an inspector to deal with this matter?

I do not know if he will be able to answer the last question but there are a number of other questions that I am sure he will be able to answer.

Mr. Byrne

On the Chairman's question as to what is happening on our streets, particularly after 6 p.m. in the evening, we also, obviously, have to deal with those issues. I am confused as to what is the reason for this aggression, in young males in particular.

And young females.

Mr. Byrne

Yes, and young females. I have discussed this with young gardaí who work on the street. Some 20 years ago when I was a young garda I served in the A district which was Kilmainham. Then when a garda approached a group of young people and asked them to move on they did so 99% of the time. We live in a free and democratic society and young people are more questioning, which is as it should be. Nowadays a kind of confrontation develops on the streets and we sometimes have to arrest people. The most common public order offence is refusing to obey the direction of a garda to go home. Most of these people are better educated than people would have been in the past. While sometimes the decision making process in clouded in alcohol, one would think that when given the option to go home individuals would take it. Even when their friends plead with them to go home it is time for confrontation. "Who are you to tell me to go home?" they ask. In fairness, most of the time they take the advice of the garda and their friends and go home. This does not always happen and things can become confrontational and end up in assault. This aggression is a change we can see on the streets of our cities and towns. If a person is aggressive with a member of the Garda Síochána, one can imagine the aggression they will have towards their peers. While I am not referring to any particular incident, Members will be aware of occasions when young people turn on their friends for a stupid or silly reason and this can have tragic consequences. While I do not want to fall back on the old excuses, it is our belief that the abuse of alcohol by certain people creates this problem. Although people may scoff at this as it is an old-fashioned term, there is a lack of shame.

I am concerned about parental responsibility and then the personal responsibility of the young, and sometimes not so young, person. At times people are inclined to shy away from the issue of parental responsibility. This has a major part to play in how a young person develops, behaves and interacts with other people. Some parents opt out of their responsibilities - this is not targeted towards any particular environment or community, it is to be found in all social backgrounds. Some parents believe that everything is wrong with the world other what their Johnny does. At times it is difficult to have parents accept that they have a problem. Yet when the problem manifests itself in a Garda station the penny drops. However, it can be too late at this stage. For most of the people the Garda Síochána deals with, to borrow a medical term, the patient has caught the disease and is well on.

We successfully intervene with young people under our juvenile diversion scheme. I do not know the answer to this. It is happening all over Britain. Members will have seen CCTV footage of what happens in the streets. I could show similar unreleased CCTV footage to members from our databank. Some people have an urge to hit someone. I do not have an answer to this but it is causing problems for us all. There is no single answer to this. Society has become affluent, and being affluent, we have become less caring and responsible and this is why I posed a question in my opening remarks.

We do not seem to come to the aid of a person in distress as quickly as we did in the past. This is something that we heard about 20 years ago in New York. Bullies are ganging up on people while four or five able-bodied young men will walk by and not intervene. What does this tell us? I have experience of bullies through my service with the Garda Síochána. Bullies fear being confronted and having to face up to someone that is as physically able as him or her, yet people opt out. The thinking that leads someone to walk away and not get involved needs to be revisited. There has to be a major wake-up call for this society. In 1996 we found that there was a major wake-up call regarding organised crime.

I do not have the answer to the question asked by the Deputy. I only know that my people have to deal with this on an ongoing basis. There are a number of reasons for this behaviour. How is this to be dealt with and what is the deterrent? Do we imprison all the people we arrest for public order offences? That is not the solution. We try to keep young people out of the criminal justice system if we think there is a chance for them. That is why our juvenile diversion scheme is so successful. It is fully supported by us, the public and public representatives in general.

As regards the age of members of the Garda Síochána, the limit is between 18 and 26 years of age. This is a matter for Government. This issue has been raised in the equality committee of the Oireachtas and it also has been raised in other countries. We receive between five and seven candidates for every vacancy. This sends out a tremendous signal as far as our organisation is concerned. I do not know of any other organisation with an attraction such as that of Garda Síochána.

Would the experience and maturity of an older person be an addition for a candidate?

Mr. Byrne

Yes, but the major influence a mature person has in the Garda Síochána is in terms of his or her experience in the force. When six or seven young people leave a station on duty, I find it useful to have someone with ten or 12 years service accompany them. At times the senior person may have only five or six years service. I never thought this was something I would have to address. When I experienced this in New York ten years ago I wished I had the same problem. I now have this problem, as there are many young gardaí in the city. There is a requirement to bring a mature and commonsense approach in dealings with young people. While I am sure Government will address this in time, it is not something I wish to get into.

As regards the number of women in the Garda Síochána, I do not have the statistics to hand but I can arrange to send them to Members. In terms of the ranks of the Garda Síochána, there is one female chief superintendent. A marked difference will be seen in ten years time. The organisation had a major problem in getting women to put themselves forward for interview. One can understand that as people get married, they may prefer a nine to five job or not seek promotion. This is changing and there are now more women going forward for promotion to the ranks of sergeant, inspector and superintendent. The senior ranks will be more representative of women in ten years time.

An independent public attitude survey about the force was carried out last year. Aspects of it, such as the high satisfaction rating with the Garda Síochána, were reassuring and encouraging and we were pleased and proud of this. Nonetheless, we recognised there were aspects that we have to work at. It is exactly as the Deputy said, we have a problem and have been criticised in a number of public attitude surveys. Our lack of referral back to people who report or are victims of crime is a problem. It is important to refer back to people. I have talked to Victim Support and it has raised this issue with me. We have established a programme with Victim Support and ran a joint conference. The point the Deputy made is valid and I agree with it. We are at fault in this instance. We are trying to impress on the organisation the importance of returning to the person that made a report. We have a weakness in this regard and it is something we are trying to improve throughout the organisation. I hope it improves in the coming years as it is a key part of what the organisation is trying to do.

People often ask me about the challenges for the future and I have touched on the issues of crime etc. At the top of the list is the need to ensure the relationship between the public and the Garda Síochána is improved. Recruiting the support of people is important to us. Without this support, we cannot provide the policing service the community requires. The relationship between the force and the public is vital in every town and village in the country. If this ever changes, the commissioner of the day will have to figure out a new way to police this country. The Garda Síochána is an unarmed police service and can operate like this as it has the support of the vast majority of the people. When taking the oath of office and at graduation, I tell our recruits that the relationship and support we receive from the community cannot be taken for granted. Respect and the support and co-operation of the community must be earned. This must be nurtured and protected as we go forward.

Since I established it a couple of years ago, the Garda national immigration bureau has enjoyed tremendous success. I will not enter into the question of finances as we are discussing the operational area. I was asked why it is necessary for gardaí to accompany those that are being deported. As the law stands, only gardaí can do this. There was also a question about the number of people. This is based on the requirements of people that lease and fly aeroplanes. The business of deportations is not nice. We have had experiences where people being deported to certain countries caused trouble on commercial flights. Members can imagine how passengers might want to get off a flight if one of the other passengers raises concerns about how they might behave. There have been a number of problems in the past. It is vitally important that there is adequate security on an aeroplane when people are being deported. There are international agreements and protocols in place for this, irrespective of Garda powers. While gardaí are on flights, they will intervene to ensure that no one on the flight will interfere or jeopardise in any way the security of anyone on board. I prefer to err on the side of safety. The Deputy asked if others could carry out this function and I have no doubt that they could. We may see developments towards non-Garda escorts in the future. We want to see gardaí carrying out the functions they are trained and paid to do. We try to release people from work that can be carried out by non-members of the Garda Síochána.

Deputy Costello raised the issue of public order figures. These are the figures I will discuss with the Minister in the coming days. The figures are encouraging at this stage. While the Deputy focused on a couple of years, one should look for crime trends over a number of years. I could show Members a graph of figures from 1981 to 2002. While I do not know what causes crime, I can speculate like anyone else. There were 89,408 crimes in 1981 and this increased to 105,000 in 2002. The figures have increased and decreased in the intervening period. There were 102,000 crimes in 1995 and this progressively decreased until 2001 when it increased again. I accept that our system for recording crime is now better that it was in the past. One would want to look at the figures for last year and the next five years to get a better indication of what is happening. I have no doubt that experts in the field can tell us more about the causes of crime. I probably would have the same ideas about the causes as members and I do not know how expert or scientific this is.

The commissioner is much better able to answer the questions.

Mr. Noel Conroy

Deputy Costello asked a question about the categorising of crime. Headline offences are generally categorised on offences that may be tried on indictment in the Circuit Criminal Court. However, the Minister has an expert group looking at this issue. There are a number of professionals examining this area and it is hoped a report will be made in the next six to nine months.

Mr. Byrne

I wish to deal with the issue of the reduction in the number of gardaí in Dublin. When one looks at Dublin figures one must bear in mind that national units are here to support local units on an ongoing basis. My figures show that the number of gardaí in Dublin has increased by 1.19% in the period 1997-2003. National units have absorbed some of our new recruits. These national units work hand in hand with units in Dublin. As with any other region, they may not be captured in the figures for it. The national bureau of criminal investigation, the national drugs unit and the fraud unit etc., all operate on the street. I do not care how many gardaí are based at Garda headquarters as long as they are working on the street. It should not be a question of where they are based as long as they are on the street and this is what we are trying to achieve. The complaints system is a matter for Government. Members will have heard the announcement by the Minister of an independent inspectorate, which I fully support because it is urgently required and will benefit the Garda Síochána and the citizens when it comes on stream.

What about Mayo?

Mr. Byrne

I will get a fellow Mayo man to answer that.

Mr. Conroy

There were 514 prosecutions for selling alcohol to persons under-age. In the eastern division, there were 45 prosecutions; in the Dublin metropolitan region, 49; in the northern region, 66; in the southern region, 131 and in the western region, 178. The conviction rate is far better in the Mayo region than any other. One might ask why that is. When the young people have been interviewed with their parents, they have been extremely helpful and have made statements saying exactly where the drink had been purchased. They have also come forward as witnesses in the courts. We invariably find that when they turn up in court, the individuals that have been detected for the offences plead guilty.

People in other regions tell us that while the parents are helpful, they do not wish their families to become involved in a court prosecution, which has a big bearing on the number of successful prosecutions. We often go back to our promotion courses and point out the successes in the western region and look at the methods employed there as against those in other regions. Having spoken to a number of superintendents on promotion courses, I am satisfied the enforcement policy is the same in each region.

I take it that if Deputy Costello can talk about Mayo, I can mention Tallaght and no one will say a word.

The Deputy should try to keep his contribution to questions because we are short on time.

I will do so. I am not as skilful as some of those asking questions. I wish to be associated with the warm welcome extended to the commissioner and his colleagues. His presentation was extremely interesting and hit a number of issues on the head. I am sure a number of people will be fascinated by his offering to put his hands up since that is the first time I have heard of a garda offering to do so.

I represent Dublin South West, which includes Templeogue, Greenhills, Firhouse and Tallaght. We are well served by the Garda not only from the Tallaght station, but from Rathfarnham, Terenure and Crumlin. However, I have often made the point, but cannot seem to quite get it across to the Garda authorities or the Minister, that despite the huge population in the constituency, there is only one Garda station. At some stage, someone will have to make a positive decision on that. I have tabled parliamentary questions about the development of the site and I support the Garda staff in Tallaght in that regard. The commissioner has been with us a couple of times recently, which we appreciate. He knows the difficult circumstances in the station and the need for development there. The men and women who serve the Garda and the community in Tallaght cannot even get parking spaces for themselves, never mind visitors. What progress has there been in the discussions between the commissioner and the Department?

Everyone in the country makes points about Garda numbers. However, Tallaght is the third largest population centre. Unfair comparisons are often made with other population centres, but we do not have a huge number of gardaí. As I have often said to the commissioner when he has been with us in Tallaght, I am delighted with the service being provided. I particularly support the innovative approaches that have been employed. For example, there is a bike unit in Tallaght, which was mentioned by the commissioner and which he and the Minister recently visited. The horse unit has come out on regular occasions and the Square Shopping Centre donated a fine horse, which the Garda took possession of recently.

I ackowledge the work of the Garda in the local community forum in the Tallaght west estates which protects bus services and schools, including the Irish-language school, which has had particular problems. There is a need for people like me who live and work in the community and are lucky enough to represent the community, to keep the pressure on the Garda and the political masters to ensure that more resources and men and women are made available. What happens in Tallaght could be duplicated around the country in order to make good use of resources. It is about seeing the best use of resources as gardaí on the street.

I lived in this area of Dublin a long time ago. Some 50 years ago, my grandmother, who lived on Stephen Street, told me about the difference between big crime and little crime. We would often see the gardaí on the street, especially if we were playing ball in George's Street. It made the community feel that it was being protected. Some 50 years later, this is still a major issue for communities.

Tallaght Garda station needs to be sorted out and no one denies that. I am sure the new Garda superintendent has made that point to the commissioner. Every superintendent who has served in Tallaght in recent times has been promoted through the Garda ranks. We must be showing the way, so we deserve special attention.

I welcome the commissioner and his team. I was going to ask about the 4,000 gardaí that were supposed to be assigned to desks doing paperwork. I am glad the commissioner has made an attempt to address that issue. However, there is a public perception that, although there are 11,900 gardaí, many of them are doing back-up jobs that could be done by other people. What is the commissioner's solution to that problem?

I welcome the fact that serious crime is down by 9% for the first three months. However, if one looks at a breakdown of the figures, some 13 people were murdered, which is one per week and is still a very high figure. I agree with many members that in recent years life has become cheap. There is also a question of unreported crime, about which I know from my work as a councillor. There have been many violent attacks and incidents of anti-social behaviour. Does the commissioner have any indication of the numbers involved? They are high. We also need to address white-collar crime, particularly the scam of insurance fraud. Does the commissioner have any ideas for tackling this, since it is leading to higher insurance costs for citizens? This is something which needs to be dealt with head on. I do not agree with the consensus that seems to be emerging that we cannot do anything about the causes of crime. There are important strategies in early intervention which involve helping dysfunctional and violent children at a young age to prevent them from being sent to Mountjoy prison. I could walk into 20 schools in the Dublin area tomorrow and talk to primary teachers who will be able to name the children in the school who will end up in Mountjoy in 15 or 16 years' time. What do we do as a society? We spend €13,500 on primary school education and €100,000 on prisons. This should be investigated. We must also consider the causes of crime, because there are things we can do. I have worked in inner cities for years with juvenile liaison officers and I know there is much great work going on and that more can be done.

Very violent people are in the community and nothing is being done about them. These include violent psychiatric patients. Is the Commissioner aware of this? Do the gardaí come across this on a regular basis? People who are dysfunctional and violent are left in the community without any back-up from our so-called health services. There should be a closer link between the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform and the health services. There is definitely a connection between violent crime and alcohol and drugs. During recent weeks there have been high-profile cases, but when alcohol is mixed with cocaine or ecstasy it leads to massive violence and destruction; young people are driven crazy. This is a new reality we will have to deal with. There has been a great deal of debate recently about drugs because the problem is affecting the better off in our society. Drugs have been killing poorer people for the past 20 years and there has not been the same uproar.

With the Celtic tiger and all our affluence we have lost our sense of community and our sense of caring. We must all tackle this, as policemen, teachers, politicians, community workers and so on. The "mé féin" society has led to the growth of aggression and negativity and is causing major problems. The Commissioner mentioned good policing and I agree with his point of view. The good garda must earn the respect of the community. I have seen this for years, working in the north inner city. If there is a good garda, somebody from the drugs squad perhaps, whom the people in the flats like and respect, they will respond to that. They will not respond to people who treat them as if they do not exist.

To prevent more deaths on our roads, we need a traffic corps. We need people out there full time. The Commissioner mentioned the figures for speeding, but I missed them; perhaps he could read them again. The relationship between the Garda and the media is important. There seems to be many leaks of information to the media. Many people in politics seem to think it is totally inappropriate for the Garda to leak information about particular cases. I question the professionalism of the people involved. What is the Commissioner's view on the recent threats of political violence in this country? Today a bomb was discovered around the corner from here. Is there a serious threat to the whole democratic process? Is there a serious threat to the peace process?

We all want a caring and supportive society, but the reality is that if people intervene in anti-social behaviours, whether in public parks or elsewhere, there is a good chance they will be stabbed or that two days later a gang of thugs will come and break the windows in the home of the person who tried to help a victim. I have seen this in my own constituency. It might be an old-fashioned idea, but the public wants to see the Garda out there. They are demanding visibility. I believe in the ethos of community-based policing - that is the way forward. Prevention saves lives and saves money. I strongly agree with Deputy Paul McGrath about lack of response from the Garda. This is a complaint we get constantly as TDs and councillors. The Garda needs to get its act together. Even if it is only a small complaint, the garda should give some sort of response to the person who made it. Then they will get support from the community.

I welcome the Garda Commissioner and his team and thank them officially for their work. We do not often get the opportunity to thank them and their 11,900 colleagues for the work they do in looking after all of us.

With the exception of my colleague Deputy Paul McGrath, I am the only person who will present the case for people outside the Pale. Where I come from, in north Tipperary, is 100 miles from here. The Deputy Commissioner states that we cannot have a garda on every street corner in every village, but there was once a time when this was almost the case. I look at small rural villages such as Lorrha, Toomevara, where there used to be two gardaí and crime was very low. Now we have none in Lorrha, for example. I know the Commissioner will explain, as he did in December, that our society is changing. Looking at his report, one can see the diversity of responsibility that the Garda now has, with the various specialist units. I can quite understand the absorption of personnel and resources. Nevertheless there is great difficulty in staffing divisions down the country. It would appear, though the current number of gardaí is the greatest ever at 11,900, the numbers in the divisions are down in rural areas. I may be corrected if I am wrong, but it is my understanding that between 50 and 60 gardaí retire each month. Are they being replace, and if so, how fast? Coming from the constituency of north Tipperary, I am very familiar with the Garda training college and I know that it is at capacity, but to where are these gardaí diverted once they qualify and leave Templemore?

Deputy McGrath mentioned the staffing of stations. It appears to me that there are a number of people within the Garda force - statisticians, specialists, forensic people, criminal investigators - who could perhaps be better deployed on the street. People outside the force could conduct the same work, releasing those who are trained to be out on the street. This is something about which I feel strongly and I would like to hear the views of the Commissioner on this. I hope that measures to this effect are being taken.

In the growing population areas outside Dublin, for example the Limerick hinterland, which is quite familiar to me, or the Ballina-Killaloe area, we need greater resources of gardaí. Killaloe, for example, must have one of the fastest growing populations in the country, but we have not responded adequately to that growing population in terms of Garda representation. My final point is a housekeeping point. The Office of Public Works conducts the renovation and refurbishment of Garda stations, particularly in rural areas. I find it painstakingly slow to get a response from the Office of Public Works about advancing the works. Some of these buildings are lovely and have preservation orders. Is there anything we can do as a committee to advance this work? It is dreadful that some of our lovely rural stations, which we hope will be staffed by the Commissioner in the near future, will be refurbished and brought up to proper standard.

The committee will be thrilled to hear that I will be very brief. I welcome the Commissioner and his colleagues and thank him for taking the time to come in to us. How many new recruits do we train annually? Has there been an increase in that number, or have we made provision for an increase? If so, when is it to happen and how big will it be? The Chairman mentioned extending the age limit for recruits. We are all aware that young people are staying in education considerably longer today than they have in the past. In other professions, such as nursing, the age limit has been extended upwards and mature students are being accepted into nursing studies, although they are a small percentage of the intake. They found in nursing that graduates were bringing their own experience and expertise into a profession they would not normally have gone into. Will the Commissioner consider that?

It is 5.50 p.m. Could the Commissioner try to reply to all questions by 6 p.m.?

Mr. Byrne

Deputy O'Connor will be aware that there are developments in Tallaght. Stations are a sensitive issue. There are 44 stations in the Dublin metropolitan region that are open on a 24 hour basis but that is being examined under the SMI process because we are "over-stationed".

Do not go near Dublin South Central.

Mr. Byrne

I hear that said about every area. The population and area of Dublin has extended and we must follow that extension. The Deputy will get a sympathetic hearing from Garda management because it is obvious that Tallaght is recognised as an area that should get a new station.

Is that an announcement?

Mr. Byrne

Unfortunately, I do not have that power.

We will read about it in the local paper in Tallaght next week.

Mr. Byrne

The important thing is to upgrade the station in Tallaght to make it a divisional headquarters.

Deputy Paul McGrath mentioned the 11,900 gardaí and the back-up staff. I fully support the principle of replacing trained members of the Garda Síochána with civilian staff to release gardaí for operational policing duties. At the end of the day, however, that is a matter for Government. There are three ways I can get extra gardaí - recruitment campaigns, further civilianisation and, cheapest of all, overtime. There are no overheads with overtime and there is flexibility to deploy people at short notice. Civilianisation is being looked at but it is not the case that a huge number of gardaí are not on duty. I hope I have cleared up this idea that there are 4,000 people behind desks. In a 24 hour overview, 671 people were involved in administration, an indication of how inaccurate the 4,000 figure is. It important that gets into the public arena.

The principle of further civilianisation is being addressed on an ongoing basis. There is no reluctance to do it, although people have said that there is. In the Police Service of Northern Ireland there are 3,200 civil servants and in Britain the ratio is also much higher than here but we are working on it continually with the staff associations and the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. I hope to see more improvement in the area in the near future because it is a valid idea.

I do not know how much crime is unreported, we can only deal with reported crime. I have no doubt some crime, perhaps a great deal of a particular type of crime, is not reported. We had a difficulty in the past with sexual crime where people were reluctant to come forward. Thankfully that has changed, as is manifest in the increase in the figures for sexual crime. We are better trained to deal with it and there is a more positive approach from victims of such crime to having it investigated.

As far as I am concerned, establishing the causes of crime and how to deal with it are matters for society and the Government to deal with. The Garda Síochána must, unfortunately, deal with the symptoms and the end products of dysfunctional people difficult environments and the lack of parental control. We deal with dysfunctional families whose children come to our notice and one does not need to be a genius to understand why. We are dealing with a different society and we have to work at the coal face of that area. We have no input into the causes of that other than in terms of our juvenile diversion scheme and juvenile liaison officers.

There are violent people in the streets and we must contend with that. Unfortunately, many of them end up in the criminal courts. The increase in cocaine usage is a concern of mine. It is a drug that gives a faster hit to the user but when one is coming down a level of paranoia develops, creating problems for us. Also, one needs a further hit much faster than those who use heroin. It is an issue we must examine.

We are committed to the establishment of a national traffic unit but we will need resources. There is no point in me telling the committee that we will do A, B and C if we have no money to do it. We are enhancing the number of gardaí we have dedicated to traffic on a full-time basis and their transport will be differently identified so that people understand that they are dealing with a dedicated unit that will only be diverted from such duty in extreme cases of national security.

The leaking of information about certain investigations also concerns me. We are in a culture at present where it is very difficult to keep a secret, it is happening everywhere. A person now gets a pat on the back for leaking information even though it might undermine an investigation. It is extremely difficult to prevent people from doing it and I will not tell the committee that I will be able to put a stop to it. At times when we investigate people for doing it, we are told we are trying to cover up. It is highly unprofessional for members of the Garda Síochána to leak information. I have talked about this at conferences. We investigate 2,000 serious headline crimes every week and leaking of information is being done by a tiny minority. I have always maintained that the vast majority of members of the Garda Síochána are professional in their approach to their work and how they interact with people but there will be a tiny minority who will not conform, in any organisation. If there are 11,900 people, 0.5% is many bad people. The point, however, is valid.

It is too early to come to any conclusions on terrorism but there is a constant threat from certain elements of republicanism with which we have been dealing for some time. We have many resources deployed to counter any activities they may be involved in to undermine the peace process. We are cognisant of that threat and take it seriously. We strive to ensure that nothing will happen to threaten the peace process. That is why we have so many people assigned to such work.

Deputy Hoctor mentioned the small villages of north County Tipperary. I grew up in one such village and I know exactly what she is talking about. Society has changed and I need to put gardaí where there is a demand for them. Unfortunately, there are small places that would have had a sergeant and three gardaí 30 years ago now being policed by one garda. I must follow the trends and demands. In the past we were able to avoid applying the Dublin roster system to rural areas. That roster is not only a three release system but has different phases in rosters to target specific occurrences of a public order or traffic nature. In the country we did not have to do that but in recent years we find that we have to roster towns on a full 24 hour basis because the demand at 3 a.m. is the same as at 3 p.m. That, in a way, reduces Garda visibility also, but it is just the way society has developed. In relation to the preservation of Garda stations, I have 703 Garda stations and to provide funding to maintain all of them will be extremely difficult. I do not want to tell the committee anything different. There is a huge cost factor in terms of 703 buildings. Committee members know that.

If they were totally unsuitable the Garda Síochána could sell them off and get new ones built at one quarter of the price. This would be a new approach to how they do this.

Mr. Byrne

I will not disagree with the Deputy there but that is outside my control.

I thank the Commissioner for his response. I find it strange that the remit appears to be with the Office of Public Works and not the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. One would expect that a Department would work together on this rather than an outside body, and that is what the Office of Public Works would be in relation to the work the Garda Síochána do. I just do not understand that but will investigate it further through the Department.

That is fine. We had Senator Geraldine Feeney's question.

Mr. Byrne

The number of recruits going into the Garda college is at an all-time high. I think the number is 653 but I will get the exact number for the Senator. We are striving to have 12,200 people in the organisation by the end of 2004, which would be the highest figure ever. It is important to recognise that this does not mean we will have 1,000 extra gardaí to put out straight away. The divider is 5.17 or 5.2 for a Garda on a 24-hour basis. We divide that between 109 Garda districts.

In the second part of that question I asked whether we have increased it and when.

Mr. Byrne

We have not increased it. The upper limit is 26 years of age but——

I am talking about the numbers we are taking into Templemore annually.

Mr. Byrne

It has been increased in recent years to its maximum. If it needs to go further we will do that. How we do so I am not so sure at this stage but we will ensure that by the end of 2004 we will have 12,200 members of the Garda Síochána. If the Senator wants any specific figures on this she can get back to my office and they will be made available to her.

Will we get more gardaí in Tallaght?

(Interruptions).

I asked a question.

I think Mr. Byrne has answered all of the questions. Sorry, there was the question about graduate employment. Does the Garda Síochána give graduates any special consideration because they have extra professional qualifications?

Mr. Byrne

We still capture many graduates into the Garda Síochána even with the 26-year upper limit. A special case is made for graduates. They do not have to do specific examinations because of their academic qualifications. I have no doubt this whole issue will be looked at in the future because age limits are a European issue as well as an all-Ireland issue.

There should be flexibility for graduates. Three or four years ago I came across a Garda who had a long history of family involvement in the force. She sat the Garda exam and so on and was accepted. There was a lead-in time before she went to training college in Templemore but she had three years done at university and wanted to complete her final year before going to Templemore. However, the college would not defer her calling for that period. They took a short-term view. If they had deferred they would have had a far better person——

Mr. Byrne

They obviously deferred it for two years.

No, she was in——

Mr. Byrne

There is no difficulty with deferrals in the organisation normally. I worked as Assistant Commissioner in charge of HR for two and a half years. Once a competition is over, deferrals cannot legally be made beyond that. The Deputy's point is that it is to the benefit of the organisation that somebody would finish college before entering the organisation. We benefit at the end of the day. This is reflected right through the organisation now where we see graduates in key areas. Their expertise and college qualifications enhance the organisation.

Commissioner Byrne, Deputy Commissioner Noel Conroy and Chief Superintendent Dave Roche, I thank you all very much for coming in. I look forward to seeing Chief Superintendent Dave Roche and Deputy Commissioner Noel Conroy on a more regular basis. Should you appear before the committee again, Commissioner, we would be delighted, of course.

Mr. Byrne

It must be before 20 July.

Again, I thank the Commissioner for his dedication and hard work in his position and express the gratitude of the committee for his co-operation, courtesy and helpfulness towards us. On behalf of the committee, I wish him well on his retirement.

Mr. Byrne

Thank you very much, Chairman. I appreciate it.

The committee is adjourned until tomorrow at 5.15 p.m., when we will consider under EU scrutiny the proposed green paper on procedures and safeguards for suspects and defendants in criminal proceedings throughout the European Union. The EU green paper was referred to the joint committee by the sub-committee on EU scrutiny at its last meeting on 27 March. The joint committee agreed at its meeting of 15 April to scrutinise the paper at the next available opportunity.

The joint committee adjourned at 6.05 p.m. sine die.
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