Garda duties and prison releases
Wallace questions Gardaí being diverted to other departments’ work and raises concerns about serious offenders being released while people remain imprisoned for contempt. The Minister regrets non-policing duties but clarifies that only courts can purge contempt.
Does the Minister agree that the Garda are not being used to the maximum advantage of the community? Is it not a fact that gardaí must carry out work for the Central Statistics Office, going into farms, counting animals, mainly pigs, and surely this is a disgraceful situation? Does the Minister agree that some of the offenders being released from our prisons have committed serious crimes? We are keeping our prisons for cases of contempt of court while serious offenders are being released. Is there not a big imbalance there? Does the Minister not agree that the priorities for releases are not helpful to the common good or to helping community relations?
Comment on this
(Limerick East): The Garda being involved in work appropriate to other Departments causes me concern but the practice is not as widespread as one might gather from the Deputy's supplementary.
Comment on this
(Limerick East): Deputies know, for example, that the Garda are helping the Department of Social Welfare in signing forms for unemployment allowances and so on. That concerns me because we have a serious problem and we have had it for a number of years and I should like to see gardaí being used exclusively for dealing with the area for which they were recruited and trained rather than being involved in the work of other Departments.
In regard to the supplementary on prisons, there are numerous questions down on that subject and because this is probably the last day that Deputies will have an opportunity to raise it before October, and because we may not reach the questions, I should like to make a statement on the matter, with the Chair's permission.
Comment on this
(Limerick East): Whereas the Minister for Justice has general power to mitigate sentences, he does not have any such power in cases of contempt of court. Only the courts can purge contempt of court and therefore the Minister has not got power to release somebody who is in prison for contempt of court. I think the Deputy was dealing with a specific case and I prefer not to comment on it further.