One of the matters I should like to comment on during the debate on this Estimate is the fact that district justices often make remarks during the hearing of cases. Very often one reads in the newspapers reports of a defendant charged with a reasonably minor offence. He can be found guilty under the law and the justice can impose the penalty prescribed by law.
Committee on Finance. - Vote 21—Office of the Minister for Justice (Resumed).
Debate resumed on the following motion:
That a sum not exceeding £266,010 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1967, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Justice, and of certain other Services administered by that Office, including a Grant-in-Aid; and of the Public Record Office, and of the Keeper of State Papers and for the purchase of Historical Documents, etc.
—(Minister for Justice).
The Deputy understands, of course, that he may not criticise a sentence imposed by a justice.
I have no intention of criticising a sentence imposed by a justice. What I wish to comment on is that while a justice imposes a sentence as prescribed by law, very often that justice takes advantage of his privileged position to make extremely damaging remarks about a defendant. Very often we have a justice who regards himself as a bit of a wit who will take advantage of his privileged position on the bench to make remarks about a defendant which can do far more damage to the defendant than would a calendar month imprisonment, and not alone that but can have serious repercussions not alone on the person concerned but on his entire family, with effect for generations, particularly in rural districts.
While we must be very careful to preserve the authority, the impartiality and the freedom of our judiciary, we must also be careful to ensure that a justice does not abuse his privileged position. Here in the House we have certain immunity and hold a privileged position in so far as we can make remarks which we do not have to answer for outside regarding a person's character, but the Chair has very often, to my knowledge, ruled Deputies out of order for making remarks about someone outside the House not in a position to defend himself. On the other hand, a man can find himself in a court charged with no more than a misdemeanour and the justice, in the exercise of his authority, can abuse his privileged position by making remarks which in many cases have no connection with the case at hearing and which can be considered to be most damaging to the person concerned.
Under the law, for instance, a man may be subject to a maximum fine of 10/- but sometimes in such cases the remarks the justice makes can have lasting effects, doing damage not only to the person in court but to his family for years afterwards. It should at least be voiced that there are people in this country who object to this abuse of privilege by these people on the bench. They are dealing with people who have absolutely no redress. If one objects or if one answers a justice back, one is liable to be held in contempt of court, irrespective of what the justice has said or of how injurious or unjust the remark may be. I suggest that the Minister should make it clear publicly that people who appear before justices have some rights and that they should not be subjected to remarks in respect of which they have no redress and are completely defenceless. I do not wish to labour the point but I thought it should be said here.
Another matter I find disturbing, and one with which I did not think the Minister dealt adequately in reply to a question I put down yesterday, is the matter of a juvenile who was committed to Mountjoy, the justice saying in court that the reason he was committing the boy to Mountjoy was that the boy was in need of psychiatric treatment which could not be provided in St. Patrick's Institution, the appropriate place for a juvenile of this type. To say the least, it is most undesirable that a boy of 16 or 17 years should be committed to Mountjoy where he is forced to mix with what could be described as hardened criminals. We have separate institutions for boys in the hope that they will not become accustomed to consorting with people who have long criminal records and also because the staffs in St. Patrick's and other such institutions are trained to try to rehabilitate juveniles who may be in conflict with the law for the first time and who may not have criminal tendencies. The Minister has a grave responsibility to ensure that treatment is readily available in appropriate institutions for juveniles when justices stipulate that they should receive a certain type of medical treatment.
The Minister and the Department are responsible for the Adoption Board, and I appeal to the Minister to keep an eye on certain aspects of its work. I wish to emphasise that I am not criticising the Adoption Board or the members of that Board: I have a very useful work. Therefore I should not like anything I have to say to be interpreted as criticism of any member of the Board. At the same time, there are things which could improve the operation of the very useful work the Board are doing.
Under the adoption law, it is obligatory for a child to be at least six months old before the adopting parent can formally adopt. I have no argument with this. It is very necessary and very desirable that the mother of the child, after what could possibly have been a very unpleasant experience, should have sufficient time to re-adjust herself to the circumstances in which she finds herself and that she should have sufficient time to give full consideration to the fact that she is signing away for all time her right to her child.
The six months' stipulation is very desirable but, like everything else, there are two sides to the story. People who apply to adopt a child and to take a child into their custody with a view to adopting it might take that child into their custody when it is two months. They realise that they have four months before they can formally adopt the child. During that four months, it is only natural that one can become very attached to the child and come to love it. In many cases where people adopt a child, they already have children of their own. While an adult can have this mental reservation—I use this expression for want of a better one—towards the child in the knowledge that it is not legally his and that there is some remote possibility that the child may have to be returned if the mother changes her mind, if there are other children in the family, it is impossible to convey this to them. It would be hoped that those children would develop a very deep affection for the adopted child.
This four months' period, before the child is six months old, is a very worrying time for the people adopting the child. At the end of the four months they can formally adopt a child under the law but there is a snag, and this is what I should like to direct the Minister's attention to. Although there is no legal requirement, the Adoption Board have laid down that the child must be in the custody of the prospective parents for six months. This does not come to light, incidentally, until you make formal application. That adds on another couple of months to this anxious time. Even when the period has expired, we find it is not physically possible for the Adoption Board to deal with the case in a speedy way. The reason would appear to be that there is only one Board for the whole country.
When the Board was established, I do not think the number of children being adopted was very great. Certainly the number was not anything like the large number that, fortunately, is being adopted today. The Board finds it necessary to go on tour around the country to cater for people in Cork, Donegal, Mayo and elsewhere who have formally applied to adopt a child. This can add one, two, three or four months to the period of waiting. This might seem a very simple issue to the casual observer but I can assure the Minister that to the people concerned, it is a very important issue. There is a certain amount of mental strain and anxiety which can be removed if those things are dealt with more speedily.
I suggest to the Minister that having regard to the very large number of parents—we are glad it is a large number—who are applying to adopt a child, perhaps now would be the time to review the whole situation and have regional adoption boards and so obviate the necessity for the one board to go on tour. Such regional boards could deal with the applications from their own areas. I would also appeal to the Minister to look into this question of the Adoption Board adding the stipulation that the child must be in the custody of the prospective parents for six months. This creates a lot of unnecessary anxiety and worry and could in many cases deter people from applying to adopt children.
The other question I should like to briefly touch on is the question of jury service. As far as I am aware, women are excluded from jury service unless they take the initiative and apply, stating they are available for jury service. I do not know why there should be any difference between the male and the female in regard to jury service.
We are bringing in a Bill to deal with this after Christmas.
It might be interesting, regarding the question of women who have opted for jury service, to know how many have been called and the total number who have offered. Apparently civil servants and officials of local authorities are not eligible for jury service. This is something I cannot understand.
I fully agree: we will deal with this.
This is a very necessary duty for citizens to perform. The Minister requests, and in fact can demand, that a private employer make his employees available for jury service. If the employee does not present himself on any given day he is called, he is subject to a fine of three guineas. The Civil Service is exempt. For what reason? Surely they have as much time as anyone in private employment? Surely they have as much interest and as much intelligence? These are things——
What about Dáil Deputies?
A Deputy can opt out. He is not necessarily exempt but he can opt out.
We are bringing in a Bill after Christmas to cover all these aspects. I agree fully with the Deputy.
In view of the fact that the Minister is being so cooperative with me, I will finish.
I suspect that the concern to have womenfolk included in jury lists is based on considerations which are more doctrinaire than real because I can say that the only time I get involved in matters of jury service is when I am requested to have people exempted from jury attendance. Perhaps one could say in reply to Deputy Cluskey that their exemption from this duty is still one of the few remaining privileges of the fair sex. However, obviously the Minister has the matter well in mind.
On a previous occasion, to a previous Minister, I said that there was a great need in Dublin city and in the suburbs particularly to have more gardaí on foot patrol. When I was a youngster, the sight of a garda foot-slogging his way up and down suburban streets was commonplace and it was a sight which inspired confidence in the public and one which made minor law breakers wary. It served a very sound moral and psychological purpose if nothing else, and it seems to me that it is very regrettable that now one rarely sees a patrol man making himself known to the residents of an area, as was the case in earlier days. I know that the patrol cars are readily available and the garda claim that they can reach any given location in a very short space of time. Nonetheless, I would impress on the Minister that the moral effect of the appearance of the local Garda on patrol is no longer there and to say the least of it, that is undesirable.
From time to time, I have heard it said, mostly by parents in suburban areas and corporation schemes in particular—people who are very anxious to keep up a good standard of behaviour —that there is considerable resentment over the fact that vandals who are brought before the courts are frequently let off scot free. That may not be a ministerial function but if one looks into it a little deeper, one may find that the reluctance of district justices in the Dublin city area to impose sentences on vandals and delinquents, particularly young people, hooligans, teddy boys and the flick knife merchants, is due to lack of corrective training establishments for treating these people. The District Justices are reluctant to treat them as hardened criminals and slap them into Mountjoy with the "old lags". I do not know if that is the true reason for this reluctance but I am inclined to think it is. Some time ago I heard that the Minister had some liaison with District Justices, or if it was not the Minister, perhaps it was the Chief Justice, in an effort to bring about a certain parity of treatment in these cases.
In regard to vandalism which is so rife and which is a growing problem in all parts of the city, and which is not confined to any one particular section of the community, there is something which has been brought home to me forcibly recently and which is worth bringing to the Minister's notice. We all know about the one rotten apple which can rot the whole barrel of fruit. Vandalism and rowdyism and trouble-making in an in-bred block of flats, say, is contagious. One or two people can set a tone of behaviour and very rapidly bring down the standard of behaviour in a small community centre. On several occasions I have had young parents—for whom I had great sympathy—with growing children coming to me as a public representative and saying: "For heaven's sake, can you get us out of this awful place in which we live because the children are being scandalised?" It is the policy of Dublin Corporation, I regret to say, to create ghettos for what they term substandard tenants, places in which vandalism and rowdyism are contagious and rife. One of these blocks is to be found in Deputy de Valera's constituency. I am sure he is very familiar with it.
It has been there for years.
This misconceived policy of Dublin Corporation is a short term solution to a social problem for the corporation but it is one which is creating a grave social problem for the people of Dublin as a whole. It is well that the Minister should be familiar with the problem because it is one with which he should be concerned. I know for a fact that gardaí enter these places of which I am speaking with great trepidation. The problems of the gardaí are not at all diminished by the action of the corporation in these matters. Having spoken to Garda officers about the matter, I know they would welcome intervention by the Minister with Dublin Corporation and with the Minister for Local Government.
Under the Road Traffic Bill which the Minister will be bringing in, the problem of abandoned cars in Dublin will be covered. It is quite a voluminous Bill and it may be quite a time before it is enacted. In the past few weeks, this problem of abandoned cars seems to be getting greater, for some reason or other. It may be that untaxed cars have been abandoned at the end of the quarter. I know of two cases in particular. One car is outside a nursing home where it is obstructing the parking of doctors' cars in a spot traditionally reserved for them in a densely congested area and the hands of the Garda seem to be tied in the matter. Perhaps in the short term, if the Minister thought fit, he would take suitable action. Pending the implementation of the legislation, a word to the Garda authorities might be appropriate.
I believe that in the Dublin area, possibly to cater for the Christmas traffic rush on an experimental basis, what are termed freeways or clearways are to be brought into operation. I have heard, although I have not been able to confirm it, that one of these freeways will be on Clontarf Road and that no parking during certain hours will be permitted. I have been approached, as I am sure other public representatives have been approached, by certain small shopkeepers on this road who do a passing trade with the motorists coming to the outer suburbs. Their trade is very largely a passing trade and they are very apprehensive about the possibility of losing their established trade, if motorists are not permitted to park outside and no other suitable place is available.
I know we cannot please everybody and that hard cases make bad law but I urge on the Minister the need to have regard to the human factor in this problem. Perhaps freeways are the only solution to the traffic problem. If so, can anything be done for these small shopkeepers of whom I speak? I know that when the Leeson Street area became one way, there was great loss of trade and I know of one establishment that completely fell to the ground on this account.
The last matter I wish to speak about—reluctantly—is of greater importance than any others I have mentioned. I do not think many of those in the house at present were here an hour ago to hear Deputy Dillon speak so eloquently and with such a sense of righteous indignation about the suppression of free speech and the right of free assembly which was evidenced at the Mansion House meeting of the LFM some weeks ago. Whether or not one agrees with the objectives of that meeting is immaterial: the right of any body of people within the law freely to express a point of view, no matter how unpopular with the mob, cannot be gainsaid.
I shall not repeat what Deputy Dillon so eloquently said because I am well aware I could not do so. He pointed out that the free vent which was given to moblaw and the denial of Garda protection to those responsible citizens who wished to express a legitimate opinion led to a very unfortunate result in Cork city——
There was no denial of Garda protection.
Yes, there was. If the Minister will hear me out, I shall proceed. I am speaking on this matter for a purpose. On the day prior to that meeting in the Mansion House, I personally, as a member of Dáil Éireann and I hope a responsible public representative, telephoned the Commissioner of the Garda Síochána in his headquarters at Phoenix Park. I spoke to him about 4 o'clock in the afternoon on the day prior to the meeting and I asked him at the request of the organisers of the meeting, the LFM, to make Garda protection available at that meeting. I want to place that fact on the records of this House.
I identified myself to the Commissioner's secretary and subsequently to the Commissioner. It was admittedly a representation made over the telephone but I have no doubt that it was treated with due regard to my responsibility as a public representative. I made this request because earlier that day one of the LFM Committee had been turned down when he made a similar request to the inspector at Store Street and the LFM Committee approached me as a person with whom they had had some dealings, a member of Dáil Éireann, and asked me if I would convey their request to higher authority, namely, the Commissioner, which I did.
I advised the Commissioner that the LFM were apprehensive that trouble would be started on an organised basis at that meeting. That apprehension, unfortunately, was well grounded. I advised the Commissioner that I would be present at the meeting and that probably other members of Dáil Éireann would be there because I had received a printed invitation and I assumed that other members of Dáil Éireann had similarly received invitations and might or might not accept them. In the event, other members of Dáil Éireann were present with me at the meeting. Not only was the request conveyed by me to the Commissioner but after the meeting had started, and I was personally present, with my heart in my mouth, I do not mind saying—it was a frightening experience— I saw the chairman of the meeting, ten or 15 minutes after it had started— he is a professional colleague of mine, Mr. Gerard Wheeler, a distinguished Dublin accountant—leave the chair. He went out the back door of the Round Room of the Mansion House to a garda who was stationed outside and said to him: "The trouble we apprehended is now brewing. Will you please enter now and keep order?" Nothing resulted. Mr. Wheeler is on record in the public Press on those lines.
I do not think I should say much more about the whole unfortunate affair. I am placing the facts on record. I had contemplated putting down a Parliamentary Question, after the meeting, referring to my representation to the Commissioner so that the Minister might be aware of it but because of the imminence of this debate and because I felt that the matter could more appropriately and sensibly be dealt with in a quiet debate rather than during a noisy Question Time, I deliberately refrained up to now from putting these facts on record.
I think they are very serious. Deputy Dillon did not for a moment exaggerate the gravity or seriousness of this organised attempt by an organised mob, flanked by two priests, as Deputy Dillon said, to suppress the right of free speech. When that day comes, it is a sorry day for this country, when these organised mobs can flout and deny the right of decent people to say what they think should be said. I do not intend to pursue the line taken by Deputy Dillon when he drew an analogy between what is now transpiring and what developed in the Thirties, a very valid analogy no doubt, but I prefer to treat of the problem in the context of life in this country today.
Moral courage is not a predominant virtue or characteristic of the Irish people. If people have the courage and that sense of righteous indignation that inspires them to book the Mansion House and hold a meeting to express an unpopular view, we should welcome that development. We should welcome the fact that they are prepared to seek public support for their viewpoint rather than to let a sore fester and turn malignant, rather than resort to violent methods to seek redress of what they consider to be a legitimate grievance. I do urge the Minister to make it clear that the right of free speech will be protected by all the forces of law and order in future and that no organised mob will succeed in denying anyone that right of free speech and free assembly.
I want, at the outset, to express to the Minister my personal appreciation of the efficiency and the courtesy with which his Department has been run over the past year. In the many dealings which I have had with the Department and the many representations which it has been my duty to make to the Department, I have been invariably met with the maximum of courtesy, and it is only right that this should be recorded.
The Department of Justice has traditionally been operated on the basis of the most conservative policies, for the reason that people do not like to tamper with methods affecting crime and punishment which have been tried and found to be, at least in part, successful. In this situation, the Minister is to be complimented on introducing a liberal outlook and a liberal approach to the many questions which are affected by the activities of his portfolio. In page 14 of his statement, I read the following:
Before I leave the subject of crime, I feel that I must refer to the undue sensationalism and exaggeration in some newspaper reports of crime. Quite often, there is an anti-police bias in those reports and one can sympathise with the gardaí when they feel resentment.
I do not know whether any previous speaker has referred to this but I want to add my voice as forcibly as I can to the sentiments herein expressed. The tabloid methods of journalistic presentation, of which we have read as having been originally invented in Britain and which are commonplace throughout America, seem to have become accepted here as the standard whereby news should be presented. This is an unfortunate and undesirable thing, and it has not added to the stature of Irish journalism. It is not too much to say that in the treatment of reports of cases of crime there is a great danger—I am speaking now of non-political crime, if the phrase is not self-contradictory; some people will argue that when the law is broken in the pursuit of a political ideal, it is not a crime—that if the organs of opinion continue to report ordinary crime in the fashion in which they have been doing it, confidence in the garda may very well be unjustifiably sapped, and this is a most serious matter.
I have on occasion personally felt some dissatisfaction in contacts which I had with gardaí in my own area. I have been the subject of a number of burglaries over the years and whoever has been coming to my house during my absence is roaming around as free as a bird and has never been held. However, that is beside the point. I suppose it is to be expected that we must be the last to complain, and it may be I might meet a TD who would make representations on my behalf. Leaving aside personal considerations, I think a policeman has a most difficult job and I am not at all satisfied that he is paid in even a remotely adequate sense. When he is subjected to this type of tabloid journalistic criticism, or even criticism by inference, not necessarily an outright attack but a suggestion of inactivity or, as I say, criticism by leaving things unsaid, which can be far more damaging than the forthright statement, such reporting may, in the long run, be injurious to the whole of our society because, in the heel of the hunt, law and order depend for their enforcement upon the integrity of the Garda. My experience has been that as a police body they are sorely tried.
From reading about the standards of police organisation in other countries, I would think that the Garda Síochána probably have a better record in this regard than that which applies in any other country in the world. Reading the newspapers, we find the incidence of dereliction of duty, to put it at its mildest, which occurs among policemen across the water, not to mention the United States, is on a scale which sometimes appals the public. We have a very proud record in that regard, one which we should try to preserve and have an eye to.
There will be occasions and there were occasions when questions needed to be asked, and, indeed, I may be asking one or two during the course of these few remarks, about the activity of the gardaí in this or that instance but the overall picture has been of a force dedicated to the upholding of the law. I want to join with the Minister in saying that one can sympathise with the gardaí when they feel resentment at what may appear to be reports with an anti-police bias. Naturally, if a man is doing a difficult and a dirty job—nobody could describe the policeman's lot as anything but that—he is entitled to expect the support of the community which he is in fact protecting. Too often he does not get that support.
We have, particularly in this city, an excellent force and excellent officers, men who, very often, literally, have to take their lives in their hands at weekends in order to ensure that the peace is preserved. One officer in particular whom I will not name but who, I am sure, is known to everybody, is a man who should be thanked by the population of the whole country and certainly is appreciated by the ordinary citizens of this city. Wherever there is difficulty or trouble this man is to be found in charge of the squad which goes in, no matter what the situation is, and restores law and order. I am reminded by my colleague that his rank is no higher than sergeant. The man deserves much greater appreciation in terms of promotion than that. I wish we had a couple of hundred like him. If we had, we would have a lot less trouble with hooligans, bowsies or blackguards.
The Minister referred also to the fact that he has introduced a Criminal Justice Bill. This is timely. There is the great problem of the ordinary citizen before the law. All citizens are said to be equal before the law but we know from practice that this is not the case. At least up to now, the position of a person before the law has been determined by his wealth or his lack of wealth. If a person was sufficiently well heeled he could employ the best legal brains obtainable in the country for his defence if he were arraigned on any charge. On the other hand, a citizen who was not able to pay for such services had to do the best he could with the help of people who might not be as experienced and, therefore, would not be as skilled in the presentation of his case as others who would be available to the citizen who was able to pay. Therefore, this euphemism about all citizens being equal before the law had no real application. In the Criminal Justice Bill the Minister is striving to bring about the situation where, in so far as it is possible within the confines of human endeavour to achieve it, every citizen would be equal before the law. I am glad that the Bill has been introduced. It is a step in the direction of making law available to the ordinary citizen at a reasonable cost, at least, at certain levels, at a cost which he can afford to pay.
To turn to one or two of the matters in which I have been interested during the year, I should be glad if the Minister would tell us when he is replying the facts in so far as he knows them about the Leitrim baby. The country was scandalised by reports as to the manner in which the body of this infant was alleged to have been returned to its mother. Indeed, it was a shocking affair as reported in the press. I was prompted to ask that an inquiry should be conducted into the matter, purely on the basis of the reports I read in the papers. The Minister, of course, did indicate that he had looked into the matter but we did not have at any time a satisfactory statement from his Department or from the Department of Health, which also had a hand in this business, as to how it came about that a responsible member of the local authority in the area, a member of the Minister's own Party, a very decent man as we all knew him as a Senator, protested in the manner in which he did at the fact that the body of this infant child was returned to its mother in a bloody condition, unclean, in a soap box or shoe box or something of that kind.
Surely that would be a matter for the hospital authorities and for another Department.
No; I am sorry to disagree with you.
It is, I think.
The Minister has no responsibility.
May I put this to you? I am not making allegations. I am looking for information about this. I want to conclude this matter once and for all by having a clear statement made about it. Let me say, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, the reason I am raising it on this Estimate is that the gardaí and the coroner were people who had a function in this matter. Therefore, I put it to you that it does properly arise.
I do not agree with the Deputy. The hospital authorities were concerned in the matter referred to by the Deputy and the Minister would have no responsibility. Perhaps there are other features of the matter.
The gardaí only drove the car which conveyed the body.
Surely the activities of the coroner come within the competence of the Department of Justice?
The condition of the body was a medical matter.
Undoubtedly, but everybody has eyes to see. You do not have to be a doctor or nurse. I am not, let me say, making any allegations about the Department or about the Minister. I want to get some statement on this to clear the public mind of doubt, if possible, and let us know what happened.
I am afraid this is not the proper Estimate.
I think it is, but I bow to your ruling, Sir.
The Chair thinks otherwise.
I have no doubt that if I bring it up on some other Estimate, I will get the same brush off.
It is sad to think we cannot raise this matter for clarification. I am not concerned about anything except that it is repellent to anyone that any mother or anybody else should be treated with such inhumanity if indeed that was the case. I am referring to it in passing now because it seemed to me this Department had a function in it.
Another incident during the year I am concerned about was the death of a man during a period when he was in police custody. I think it was in the Moate district of West-meath. Here, again, I am making no allegations against the Garda, but there is a great deal of public unrest about it, of which I am sure the Minister is aware, many people asking: "What happened in this case? Was it a cover-up?" I do not know. I am not saying it was, but I should like the Minister to clarify the position as to what actually happened. If faults are to be found on the side of the police, no effort should be made to cover them. We all have to pay for our sins, one way or the other. If we do not pay here, we will pay in another place.
Yes, Canon.
This deals with the the question of the treatment of an ordinary citizen when taken into custody. I know it is often very difficult for the police to treat with kid gloves people taken into custody, because the people concerned may not be treating the police with kid gloves. One attitude borrows another, as it were. I do not know what happened in this case but I should like an explanation from the Minister as to what happened, so that the air may be cleared and doubt removed from the minds of the people.
There is another matter in connection with the Garda in which I am interested and on which I should like the Minister's observations. What are the terms of employment, if any, under which Gardaí operate? What is the position of a member of the Force of any rank in respect of employment outside of his duty hours in business or elsewhere? Is he entitled to take up such employment? Is he entitled to work at any other job outside of being a garda? If he is, is he entitled to wear the uniform of the Garda Síochána when he is doing it?
These are matters of public interest and certainly matters of interest to me. For my own information I should like to know what the answers are. I am certain many people outside are asking the same questions. In our society the Garda has tremendous authority. I do not think there is anybody, even the most hardened Member of Oireachtas Éireann, who does not have a certain slight feeling of apprehension when halted by even the youngest member of the Force and asked about this, that or the other in relation to, say, the tax of his car. Gardaí have tremendous authority, and a good thing it is, too. The very sight of a garda's unform invests the wearer with dignity in the public eye, the right to question and to instil in some degree—I will not say "fear"— a proper respect among the people generally.
I should like to know what right has a garda when finished his ordinary duties to take up employment outside his duty hours. Is he entitled under the terms of his contract to do so? What right has he to wear a uniform during that time when he is not, in fact, a garda? It would appear to me that this is a very important matter. There is no way the ordinary citizen can know when a garda is on or off duty. So long as the garda wears his uniform, the ordinary person considers he is on duty. But, in fact, it may be that he is not on duty at all. Is it possible this could happen, that he could be in other employment after his ordinary hours, wearing his Garda uniform and thereby creating the impression it was in fact during his normal duty hours and that he was pursuing matters as a policeman in the ordinary course of his work? These are very vital, interesting and important questions. Their answers, I think, will be called for by the public. Indeed, there may be many members of the Force who would be glad to know what exactly the position is in this regard.
I am glad the Minister referred in his statement to the Act which was introduced to back British warrants for the apprehension of law breakers in this country. Undoubtedly, there was a danger that we were getting a Tangier-like reputation among the gentlemen in England who can scale walls with such facility, rob banks completely unimpeded, ambush payroll cars, and so on. It appeared at one time, not too long ago, that if they could skip across the sea to Ireland they were safe enough. I am glad steps have now been taken to correct that, so that British warrants will be backed here and that this country will not become, as it seemed in danger of becoming, a haven for that undesirable type of traveller.
I would agree with Deputy Byrne that we seem to have lost something in the effectiveness of the Garda Síochána when we left behind us the old system of foot patrols. I do not think it is possible to improve upon the system of foot patrols by policemen for the preservation of law and order. It was an old Royal Irish Constabulary system. There was no better system than it and I say it as the son of an RIC policeman—not that I remember that he told it to me or had the opportunity of telling me about his service but it was spoken of by many.
I think it will be admitted by all, even by those who fought them hardest, that, looked at from the point of view of its mechanics as a police force, the RIC had probably the best organised approach to the detection of law breakers of any to be found. It was based upon the simple idea of the policeman having a certain area to cover, say a square mile or a square half-mile. There was no living thing, man, woman, child or animal existing in that area that the particular policeman concerned did not know all about. It may be said that it was a system of espionage organised by the British: probably it is correct enough to say that. However, if we have any thoughts of such a system being applied for the detection of simple crime, it seems the perfect answer.
We have moved away from the days when we had these foot patrols, these policemen who were so much a part of the life of the people that, if they were not physically within easy reach, they were thought to be within easy reach. Their presence was forever there as a kind of comfort to those who might fear the law breaker or the thief, at night particularly. We have now long been in the era of the mobile police squad. I am not at all convinced, any more than the late Deputy Thaddeus Lynch who spoke on this subject many times in this House was convinced, that the mobile squad is at all a substitute for the old system which was operated not alone by the RIC but by the Garda Síochána here up to recent years. I suppose one cannot turn back the clock and that it would be thought that this would be turning back the clock. I suppose such an argument would be made. At the same time, there are unanswerable reasons why there should be a reintroduction of at least limited foot patrols in certain areas where they are required.
Deputy Byrne referred to districts in the city into which members of the Garda Síochána do not like to enter. I do not think this is entirely true. There are members of the Garda Síochána in Dublin city whose courage is such that there is no situation that I can visualise that they would not go into. There are not many areas such as he had in mind. He called them "ghettos". It would be a mistake to think there are many such places. Foot patrols of gardaí would be far more effective, I think, in their vicinity than the present so-called modern system of mobility of police.
On that matter which was mentioned by Deputy Byrne, the difficulty of policing such areas as he had in mind, that is a problem that has been with this city long before this State was set up. The district to which he refers has been in existence about 80 years. It is very difficult to change the habits of what he described as a small inbred community where there is a tradition of, one might say, lawlessness going back over the best part of a century. One might say that it can be changed by taking the people out of the district and putting them into the suburbs but we must have regard to the people in the suburbs. It is not very fair that they should have inflicted upon them persons of an utterly different outlook and mentality from that of themselves and persons who may bring about a complete reduction of the value of the area to which they are sent. When I suggest that foot patrols are the answer I do not do so as a matter of sentimental remembrance. It seems to me that the system proved itself the most effective one in the detection of crime and in those parts of the country where crime is found to be developing at an unduly fast rate I would urge on the Minister to consider, even as a temporary measure, in such instances, the re-introduction of intensive foot patrols until the rash, the particular rash, is remedied.
I am very happy to read what the Minister has to say in paragraph 55 on page 17 of his brief which is as follows:
I mentioned last year the opening of Mountjoy Prison hostel and I am glad to be able to report that the innovation has been fully justified by the progress made to date. Since it was opened in July, 1964, nearly 100 prisoners have passed through the hostel and only 5 of these have been recommitted to prison. It would be too much, I suppose, to expect a continued "success" rate of the order of 95 per cent....
It is very encouraging that approximately only five out of 100 persons found their way back to Mountjoy. Some people may say that the district justices are too lenient and that may well be the reason why so small a number eventually returned to Mountjoy but, from my own experience, I should think that this is not a justifiable criticism. In fact, I think the new approach for which the Minister has been responsible—his predecessor, too, Deputy Haughey, the present Minister for Finance, it must be said, contributed to it also—to the treatment of the offender is having beneficial results. The old idea of retributive justice can be taken as a kind of revenge upon the law and that has been rejected, I am glad to say, by the activities of this Department.
Hear, hear.
And the emphasis is placed upon reform and the creation of a situation wherein the person who has broken the law may be enabled to become rehabilitated, as we say, in society. This is a great thing. I know, because I spent a considerable length of time in jail in this country before the war. I remember adults mixed with young criminals before the war in Mountjoy and I remember the hopelessness of those days. It was just a matter of catching them and sticking them in jail because they knew they would get out again.
I have been talking to scores of them. A great deal of good has been done by putting an end to that penal system to which they were subjected. The manner in which, up to recent years, young criminals were lodged in jail with hardened criminals was to be deplored. If they did not know about the science of lock picking, and so on, when going in they certainly knew it all coming out. I have seen criminals of odd ages together; the most hardened old lags mixed with the youngest offenders. That is changed and we are under a more liberal code which we have seen developed in the last few years. The abolition of capital punishment was a progressive step.
It would be too much to expect 95 per cent success so far as the rehabilitation of convicts is concerned. Still, it would be reasonable to expect a fairly high percentage because it must be remembered that in many cases, not by any means in all cases, where young people find themselves in trouble with the law, it has come about through ignorance of the law, through unhappy home life of one kind or another or through the utter lack of sympathy which they found, possibly, from the time they reached the use of reason and which in turn developed in them a kind of psychosis in which they hated society.
All these things affect a large number of young people incredible though it might appear to other members of society but they are of the same flesh and blood as the rest of us. When we rush so hastily to condemn criminals as a class apart, an incredible kind of people doing incredible kind of things, we are only talking about ourselves who, but for the grace of Almighty God, would be in the same position. This is a fact and a philosophy which must underlie a progressive approach to this question but which does not, I must say, dignify the present approach towards the treatment of offenders in this country.
Some people interpret this as a weakness. They feel that we should go back to the rope for the murderer and to the birch for the offender, whereas all history is strewn with countless pieces of evidence showing that the only thing that is begotten of violence such as is typified by the rope or the birch is further violence and further inhumanity. That is the only thing that flows from it. Have we not seen in every walk of life that violence not only leaves a legacy of violence in one generation but in several generations because it is a contravention of the natural law?
I wish the Minister every success in his efforts to humanise methods of dealing with those offenders and I am certain that far better results will be gained therefrom than from the older regimen. Deputy Cluskey referred to the opinions of some District Justices who are as free with their opinions as indeed are disc jockeys, who are also, I believe, described as DJ's. Most members of the bench, from my observations, have displayed, and continue to display, a very high and keen consciousness of their elevated position and their heavy responsibility. There are one or two, perhaps, who go into the region of what might loosely be described as "Herod's plague". It is not sufficient that they should deal with the man, woman, boy or girl in the dock before them but they want everybody to know what they think of life generally and what the solutions to problems of all kinds are; not that they walk on to the bench but they walk on stage and proceed to perform. That is not good enough. There are not many—just one or two—and the majority are decent responsible men. In the case of one or two a little intimation from headquarters might have, shall we say, a sobering effect.
Nothing further I must say occurs to me as the lawyers might have at the bottom of their brief. I have nothing else to say in regard to this Estimate except once more to wish the Minister well in his difficult task and to assure him that every well-intentioned Member of this House is with him in his pursuit of the non-political objective of justice for all.
I thank the Deputy.
I shall not delay the House very long. What I have to say has, to some extent, been touched on by other speakers. It is natural that the question of the Garda Síochána and their duties should be an essential part of this Estimate. It is fair to say that all of us, and citizens in particular, have been very favourably impressed by the quality of the police force and especially the younger recruits. We have witnessed in the past few years a change, so far as age groups are concerned. A large number of men of the same age group who had set the tradition for the Force inevitably in the circumstances of the time moved off at approximately the same time. Therefore, there was a more noticeable change for several years than there would have been in the normal way, resulting from retirements and recruitings. It is very consoling to see that, if anything, the standard of the Force at the moment is higher than it ever was before. If one were to say that, it would be paying a high tribute.
I should like to make some suggestions in regard to the Force and how it can operate. Some of them have been made already. First of all, I wonder has the Minister considered the question of divorcing traffic, at least certain traffic duties such as parking offences, from the regular body of the police force? Nowhere do the Garda come into disadvantageous contact with the public to such an extent as when they are enforcing the routine duties of, say, keeping parking spaces clear. They are put in a position of being, so to speak, directly against the citizen. I do not mean exactly against the citizen—the gardaí have their duties to do—but it is a fruitful source of, shall we say, irritation. I do not like to use the word "friction" because from my observation they perform this duty courteously and with all the consideration they can. The objection to it is, first of all, that it is a duty which does not help the police in their other duties. Secondly, it is a duty which must be very consuming of manpower when the members of the Force are needed for other things.
I shall not go so far as to suggest that all traffic problems should be taken away from the Garda. What I am suggesting is that perhaps some kind of a warden system might be possible. Maybe the ladies would be rather good at issuing parking tickets. They might be less amenable to a smile than the men. The service need not necessarily be confined to men: it could be a mixed force. They could carry out some of the routine duties. Parking offences are not really matters of crime; they are more a question of maintaining order and ensuring that people are not guilty of disorderly conduct. If that were done, the police would be available for the duties for which police are really needed. All over the world the amount of policing the roads need has taken away from the force that is available.
I read recently of a police force in England where the local Chief Constable was trying an experiment of this nature. I realise it is easy enough to make suggestions without backing them up by expert information and I merely offer this type of approach to the Minister for consideration. It would seem that both the Garda and the public would mutually gain and there would be removed a cause of a little friction between the two. In saying that, I am not implying in any way that there has been any lack the Garda. If there had been at any stage, I think it is noticeable that under the new dispensation gardaí are very understanding in all these matters and are very courteous.
Of course there will be major policing problems of the road. The question of controlling traffic and policing unusual concentrations of vehicles is a big one. The police will always have a vital interest in the whole traffic organisation of the city. If I were to digress on that, I would probably wander into other Estimates. This Minister is concerned only with actual policing and that policing has to be done within the actual framework of the local authority situation, the legal situation and the traffic situation.
There is another matter which has been mentioned and to which I would like to add my voice, the Garda patrol. From time to time over the years, I have raised this question. Deputy P. Byrne referred to the constituency which I represent. I have raised the question of the safety of individual gardaí on duty in certain parts. That does not mean that Dublin is any worse than anywhere else. This is a problem in all big cities. If the Minister or the Commissioner is going to accede to the suggestion made here today regarding foot patrols, I should like to say that I, too, can see the case. It would probably be a good thing, certainly in certain areas.
I should like to add that as an essential part of any such scheme, every such patrol should consist of at least two men and they should have a portable radio to get in touch with a car, if necessary. It seems to me that it would be ridiculous, and I am sure the Deputies who mentioned it had no such thing in mind, simply to go back to foot patrols entirely for the police force in the city. Times have changed and there are all sorts of modern facilities. The police force must keep up with that situation and apply all these advantages to their purpose. Nobody could reasonably suggest that there should not be car patrols and motorcycle patrols. They are very useful and can be controlled and contacted by radio. The car has advantages in the speed with which the police can come to the spot. That is something that has to be reckoned. I shall content myself with saying that whereas I would join with others in raising the question, it is a matter for the police as experts to say what the distribution should be, how to use foot patrol, standing patrol, motorcycle and car in a concerted scheme for preserving order, and one would need to be a police expert to give an answer to that. I, for my part, will abide the opinions of the experts.
To emphasise the point, regrettably this city, in modern conditions, must share in the troubles and social diseases, if one likes so to term them, which affect all cities in modern times. This city is quite likely to share in that in proportion to its growth. That being so, the protection of isolated police officers is most important. Proper protection connotes immediate support and a means of making contact and calling up further support. These are absolutely necessary in the interests of humanity, to say nothing of the interests of morale and efficiency. I should like to recall to the Minister's mind, if I may, a number of questions I have asked about gardaí and the problems they have. These men must be adequately protected and it is our responsibility to ensure, when they are asked to do a job, often an unpleasant job, that they get the support of the community as a whole. Those are my comments on the suggestions made.
There is another matter which touches on the gardaí and prison warders. One can sympathise—I hope one does—with the viewpoint of the Minister in his appproach to reform and the prevention of crime by striking at its roots. I congratulate the Minister and the police and the Commissioner on the crime figures. There has been a reduction in indictable offences, if I read the figures correctly, in this year of grace, and that with a growing population in a city which is becoming more and more cosmopolitan. That is a very fine achievement. It is one of which the police force can very well be proud.
What about congratulating the population?
Yes; I congratulate the population too. It was not my intention not to congratulate the population.
The people are entitled to some credit.
The Deputy need not infer from the fact that I congratulate one that I do not congratulate the other.
The Deputy will be congratulating Deputy Burke if he does not stop.
The performance is a good one. The idea of retribution or a fitting penalty in retribution does not appeal, but there is also the question of prevention, of deterring. No matter what way one looks at it, the fact remains that we need a police force, and we need prisons, and we need judges to pass sentences. If we do not have such a system, there will be nothing to deter the unlawfully-minded. In the past the pendulum swung too far in one direction. In the present it can swing too far in another.
Let us not blind ourselves to the fact that there will always be the problem of the hard core and that hard core can be controlled only by prevention and deterrents. There will always be a certain residue of intractables and the problem of those intractables will be solved only by removing them from the scene in which they can be active; in other words, prisons will have to remain with us. We will not be able to get away from the technique of arrest and imprisonment in the last resort.
However unpopular it may be to say it, I fear it will be necessary to maintain certain standards of punishment, certain standards of sentences, with a certain element of punishment in them, to control the situation. I back that statement by observation of the crime problem in the neighbouring country. Experiments have been, and are being, tried there and the most one can say is that they do not justify the complete abolition of centres of detention; neither do they justify the abolition of courts to try these people and sentence them; neither do they justify the abolition of the police force to detect, apprehend and commit offenders. There is fairly serious crime to be dealt with across the water, as one appreciates from reading the papers every day.
Unpleasant and unpopular as it may be to say it, I think the Minister and the police will always have to balance their positions. In that regard I want to point out the necessity for adequately supporting both the police and prison warders in the discharge of their duties. Again, in saying that, I am not to be taken as making wholesale charges of lack of support, but I do say that good police work and a good record of crime detection must be adequately backed up by a recognition of the seriousness of the crime. We are pleased here to pay compliments on the detection of crime. Let us ask ourselves logically why do we do that, because crime is a serious matter. Let us not be content, however, with saying crime is detected. The police, who very often run risks in carrying out their duties, must be adequately backed up by the law, and I think Deputy Dillon will join with me in advocating that the law should be such as to make unnecessary any extra-legal practices, or anything like that. That is what can happen; that is what has happened in other countries.
The Deputy need not go to other countries. We have had mobs here.
I am not talking about mobs; I am talking about a totally different thing. If a man has a job to do—I am talking about the police officer—and he cannot do it effectively with the legal resources behind him, there is a terrible temptation, as there has been in other countries. Thank God, it is not here now. What I am trying to point out here is the guarantee of justice for all, and no less for the man who is entitled to it— the worst criminal—than any other the guarantee that the law will be open and firm with him and that the police will be empowered to deal with him within the law——
Hear, hear.
——and that there will be no temptation or no need to go outside the law.
Hear, hear.
One thing about the British police system at home that strikes one—and our police have been equally good—is that they have been so backed by the law heretofore that these extra-legal practices that have been a blot on old jurisdictions have not occurred. There was a very recent example on the far side of the water— I do not want to be specific about it; perhaps everyone knows what I am talking about—of the discipline of the police force, in very trying circumstances, being maintained, a situation which commanded a lot of public admiration. One runs the risk of undermining that discipline, quite apart from the fairness or from the necessity to support the police officer, if he is not adequately supported on the administrative and judicial side. That is the plea I am making to the Minister here, and it is not so much a plea as a comment.
We owe it to our gardaí that they be backed up in their personal safety and supported in their duty, not "let down"—to use a common phrase— as I have already indicated. It is due to them that the law and the courts will support them in proportion to the gravity of their work and the gravity of the cause in question at any particular time. Therefore, we go one step further, to the matter of both remuneration and compensation for important officers of the State, such as gardaí and warders—I include warders of our prisons. I am not very clear at the present moment as to what is the position if a garda or a warder is injured in the course of his duty. I know some improvement has been made in recent times but I think it is vitally important, when any injury is inflicted upon one of these officers in the course of his duty, through assault or otherwise—I am talking about malicious injury— there should be adequate compensation available, on the one hand, and the sternest disciplinary measures available to support those officers, on the other. One must remember it is true enough to say one never has enough police and that police are always working at a numerical disadvantage.
One would not have thought that with the farmers' march. There were two policemen for every farmer and fine looking men they were, God bless them.
But the warders are at even a greater numerical disadvantage and their conditions in that regard, I fear — my information may not be accurate here — may not be quite as favourable as those of, say, a garda in similar circumstances. The plea I want to make on this occasion is that in the case of both, the provisions should be adequate for personal protection, compensation and the disciplinary retribution that must follow any interference with the persons of these officers of the law in the discharge of their duty. These, to my mind, are very serious offences and all the philosophising about humanity and all the rest does not get away from a rather hard and, if you like, nasty, fact of life that these men run a risk and sometimes incur serious injury.
I have mentioned the question of pay with regard to both of those people. Things have been greatly improved, I admit, but it is not exactly scales of pay I want to deal with here. I want to suggest that we in the community may need to re-assess our values, vis-à-vis the other values in the community, of certain essential people like police officers, teachers—teachers do not arise on this Estimate — but public officers who are not, so to speak, classed in the ordinary words “civil servant”. They are every bit as important to the community as any other public officer. In fact, without these people performing their role efficiently in the society, the administrative arm of the society becomes in-of courtesy or tact on the part of effective. In the last analysis, the Government and the administration depends for its effectiveness upon those people, whether they be gardaí, prison warders, teachers; and one could enumerate a large number.
This is not the place to make a general analysis, a general plea. I shall confine myself to the Garda Síochána, recognising of course that the present administration has done a great deal to meet this and I am glad to say that that has been recognised by the Garda. It is the principle of this I should like to emphasise here. I could go on and deal with the question of the severity of sentences. That is a subject of considerable complexity and difficulty; I am talking of serious crime and, for various reasons, I do not want to raise this question in detail now. Anyway, I have not the time, but I do want to bring to the Minister's attention the bearing of that problem on the police problem and I shall not detain the House expatiating on that.
Why?
Simply because I have said all I want to say on it.
The Deputy has said nothing on it.
The question of juries is coming up. Whatever about the rights of women, I could not help wondering how housewives or a number of people would feel if they found themselves on a compulsory jury panel. I did not quite follow the argument, but, as Deputy Byrne said, most people want to get off jury service. Would a lot of people thank you?
They are entitled to play their rightful part.
Yes, but would a lot of people thank you?
I do not think it is a Minister's function to deprive them of it.
Well, then, they can apply at the moment?
They have applied and have not been called.
I shall leave that part to the Deputy.
Progress reported; Committee to sit again.
The Dáil adjourned at 5 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Tuesday, 29th November, 1966.