With the permission of the Leas-Cheann Comhairle, I propose to discuss the Supplementary Estimates for the Garda Síochána, Prisons and Courts together.
The Supplementary Estimate for the Garda Síochána is required to meet additional expenditure on six subheads of the Vote — salaries, wages and allowances, travelling and incidental expenses, postal and telecommunications services, clothing and accessories, station services and radio and other equipment. The total additional expenditure amounts to £8.83m million but £0.55 million of this can be met from savings elsewhere on the Vote. The net additional sum now sought is, therefore, £8.28 million.
The additional funds required are to meet expenditure of an unforeseen nature that has arisen since the original Estimate was prepared. In summary, an additional sum of £1.2 million is needed for salaries and allowances and an extra £1.6 million for overtime, all under subhead A, and an extra £6 million is needed to meet extra costs under the other five subheads.
The cost of additional payments in respect of salaries and allowances under subhead A, which was not provided for in the original Estimate, is £1.2 million. This sum is required mainly because payment of certain allowances relating to December 1985 was not claimed by members of the force until January of this year.
The additional funds required to meet the cost of overtime worked by the Garda Síochána this year arise mainly from extra security measures introduced following the Anglo-Irish Agreement. intensive investigations into a number of serious crimes and security arrangements for special events during the year, such as visits by foreign dignitaries. Garda overtime has been the subject of much exaggerated comment both in the media and, indeed, in this House and I would like to take this opportunity to put the facts again on record.
The original provision in the Estimates for Garda overtime in 1986 was £12 million. As expenditure in the first four months of the year was running at a very high level, the Garda authorities undertook a detailed review of expenditure on overtime so as to ensure that the best possible return was being got from it. This review, together with a general reappraisal of Garda deployment, led to some changes in the use of resources. That was as might be expected.
As I pointed out in this House on 1 July last during my contribution to the debate on Garda overtime, the fact is that the money provided for overtime is one element only in the total provision of Garda resources. It would be entirely misleading to regard a high incidence of overtime working on its own as any kind of reliable or valid measure of the effectiveness of policing.
I also assured the House in the course of that debate that adequate finance for any necessary overtime in the Garda Síochána would be provided and that no essential Garda duty would be left undone for want of the necessary finances. I am now providing a further £1.6 million for Garda overtime to meet the cost of additional overtime worked by the Garda Síochána this year, in the circumstances I have just outlined. This demonstrates, if any further demonstration is needed, the Government's commitment to ensuring that as far as our resources permit the necessary funds will be made available to the gardaí to enable them to meet the policing needs of the community in an efficient and effective manner.
I will now give details of the funds required for services other than pay and overtime. An additional £0.98 million is required under subhead B.1 for travel and incidental expenses. A sum of £0.7 million of this is required because expenditure in respect of compensation awarded by the courts is running at a higher level than anticipated. This is an area where it is very difficult to predict accurately the amount of compensation likely to be paid out in any one year. The balance of this sum, £0.28 million, is required to meet unforeseen expenditure on travel arising from extra Border security measures and also to cater for an increase in subsistence allowance rates which has recently been authorised for gardaí, in common with other public servants.
Extra funds amounting to £0.39 million are required under subhead C in respect of telecommunications. The additional expenditure arises because of increased usage and higher charges.
A sum of £0.9 milllion is required under subhead D for the purchase of clothing and accessories. The original allocation for this purpose has proved to be inadequate to meet the accounts for uniform cloth, the making up of uniforms and the purchase of accessories that are being received and which will fall due for payment this year. The relatively high level of expenditure this year arises as a result of efforts to secure early deliveries of materials to enable the proposed new Garda uniform to be introduced as soon as possible.
An additional £0.125 million has been included under subhead E.1 — station services — to continue the programme of replacing obsolete furniture at Garda stations, to improve the filing systems available at stations and to provide vandal-proof, fire-retardant mattresses in station cells. Also, an additional £0.38 million is included under this subhead for extra expenditure on cleaning, fuel and electricity for Garda stations due to factors, such as the number of new and extended Garda stations and the additonal electrical and telecommunications equipment installed in stations.
The original provision in the Estimates subhead for Garda equipment — subhead H — was £2.535 million of which £1.62 million related to Garda radio equipment. This later amount was sufficient to cover leasing repayments in respect of the equipment which it was intended to acquire in the current year. There are, however, economic advantages to be gained if this equipment is purchased outright rather than leased. On further consideration it has been decided to exercise the purchase rather than the leasing option. The purchase of the equipment requires the provision of an additional sum of £3.255 million which, together with original £2.535 million provision in this subhead, brings the new subhead total to £5.79 million. As I indicated, this increased expenditure in the year will mean that there will be considerable financial savings in the longer term.
This Garda radio communications network is an expensive item — over £11 million has already been spent on it — but it is an essential operation tool which the gardaí must have if they are to carry out effectively the vital work which is entrusted to them. The provision of the network is being guided by a committee of experts who are giving most generously of their time and expertise. I am satisfied that what we are getting is not alone a system that is totally up-to-date and tailor-made to meet Garda needs but one that represents very good value for the money spent on it. It should give excellent service to the Garda Síochána for many years to come.
The new radio system is already operating very effectively in all Garda stations outside of the Dublin metropolitan area. The provision of a new, more effective radio communications system for the DMA is now in progress. While the gardaí in the DMA have been using radio communications to good effect for many years, their present system is no longer adequate to meet Garda needs having regard to the growth in the size and population of the city and the fact that more than 4,000 gardaí, roughly one-third of the force, now serve in Dublin.
Work on the new system is well advanced, and the equipment for the radio element of the system is being delivered and installed at present in the 43 Garda stations throughout the city. Recently, I signed a major contract for a computerised command and control system which will act as an essential backup to the new radio system. It will be installed in the new DMA control room which is now being fitted out. The new command and control system will ensure that all incoming calls from the public, particularly 999 calls, get the necessary Garda response with the utmost speed. All messages passing through the system will be recorded so as to be available in case of any follow-up inquiry. The system will also provide valuable management information to senior Garda officers regarding, for example, the time taken to respond to calls for assistance or the pattern of crimes being experienced in particular areas at particular times so that it will allow for better planning of the use of Garda manpower and other resources.
While on the subject, I want to make one further point about this command and control system. Contrary to what has been suggested by certain media commentators, the new computerised system will not in any way infringe on the civil liberties or the privacy of individuals. The system will simply provide a better service to the public by ensuring that every call for Garda assistance is received, recorded and responded to with the utmost efficiency.
The integrated communications system for the DMA will be one of the most advanced metropolitan police systems anywhere in the world and I am confident it will be of real practical value to the gardaí on operation duties, to their officers in the discharge of their managerial responsibilities and, above all, to the public who will benefit from a more effective response to their calls for Garda assistance.
The Government fully recognise that the maintenance of order is essential for the development of society and are committed to taking all possible measures to reduce the incidence of crime in our community. Since the sixties there has been a gradual change in both the incidence and pattern of crime. Not only is there more serious crime today but it is being committed by better organised. more professional criminals who make the job of detection more difficult for the gardaí. It is, therefore, all the more important that the Garda be given the necessary resources and manpower to enable them to tackle these criminals effectively. That is what they are doing.
In 1984 there was a decrease of 2.6 per cent in national crime figures. This downward trend continued in 1985 with a further decrease of 8.5 per cent. Last year was the first time for some 24 years that there was a reduction in recorded crime for two consecutive years. I am informed by the Garda authorities that the decrease in the recorded level of serious crime is continuing this year. The present indications are, therefore, that the level of recorded indictable crime will decrease for the third year in a row during this Government's term of office. By any objective standard, I think this must be regarded as a remarkable achievement. It is worth mentioning that if this third decrease in a row occurs — and I have no reason to doubt it at this stage — it will be the first time that such an event occurred since crime figures began to be published in their present format in 1942.
There are many reasons for the falling trend in crime. Some of them are to be found in the increasing public awareness of methods of crime prevention, an awareness developed with the assistance of Garda crime prevention officers throughout the country. Some of the reasons are to be found in the increasing realisation by more and more people that some forms of crime, particularly drug-related crime, are so dangerous and so corrosive of society that they must be shunned and that we ourselves must educate people, particularly young people, away for them.
One of the reasons for the reduction in the crime rate is, quite simply, that the gardaí do a good job with the resources at their disposal. We should not forget that and we would give credit where credit is due. I have found, at all levels in the Garda Síochána, a very strong commitment to the development of the capabilities of the force and to the further improvement of its service to the public. I should not be the only one to say this: many Members of this House share my view, and I would like to hear the representative bodies of the Garda Síochána give more frequent public expression to this view, which I know they share also.
The decline in crime levels, which has now extended unprecedentedly over a period of three years gives the lie to a particularly nasty message on one of the recent gutter-snipe Fianna Fáil posters — a poster designed to capitalise in the most cynical way on the understandable fears of vulnerable sections of our community. I can tell the Fianna Fáil backroom handlers and poster merchants that people today can feel safer in their homes and on the streets than they did three year ago because both the Government and the Garda Síochána have done their job well.
During the course of a recent debate in this House, Deputy Haughey wondered if he were seeing the emerging shape of an election campaign. He did not like it, he said. I suggest that he and his colleagues look into their own backyard, and apply their tender sensitivities to the activities of their corner-boy poster-pasters.