The report of the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland is a strategy to transform policing in Ireland.

I will wait until there is order.

Please, Deputies. I call Deputy Howlin, who does not interrupt.

I take it we will start the clock again.

That is fine. We will start the clock again.

The report of the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland is a strategy to transform policing in Ireland. The report rightly notes that many people have very good relations with An Garda Síochána. We want to preserve everything that is right with An Garda Síochána. There is, equally, a need for large-scale, once in a generation reform and change in how the force is structured and operates. It is important we get this right. At first glance, there are many things in the report with which everyone in this House, and certainly in the Labour Party, would agree.

I welcome the centrality of human rights, the role of policing in promoting human rights and enhancing capacity in areas such as security intelligence. I also welcome the clear focus on front-line community policing, for which I have long called. What is proposed here is a new district policing model where all personnel at district level should be considered to be community policing. Community policing is not just a label to be applied. It involves a different approach to policing and close engagement with communities and with citizens.

One of the features of the report is that it envisages drawing clearer, cleaner lines between the functions of An Garda Síochána and other public bodies. There is, however, one suggestion in the report that runs counter to the logic of independence and separation of function. I refer to the recommendation that the Garda Commissioner should again be in charge of appointing senior personnel in An Garda Síochána and that he or she should also be in charge of setting remuneration policy within the force. I believe fervently that this is wrong. One of the most important reforms already made to An Garda Síochána, in the ten years we have been trying to make reforms, has been creating an independent process for the appointment of senior police officers.

We recognised that the appointment of senior people had become far too incestuous. It led to perverse outcomes such as senior staff often being more loyal to the Garda Commissioner than to the public. This created an unhealthy inner circle at the core of An Garda Síochána. It is a power this House removed and I believe passionately that it should stay removed. All of my experience, in and out of government, leads me to believe an independent appointment process for senior gardaí is the single most important reform that should be retained.

I understand a minority report within the review body came to the same view. Those members of the commission were against this measure. I ask the Taoiseach at least to discuss it openly with us all. I do not believe every single recommendation needs to be accepted. This is of such fundamental importance that I ask him to reject the notion of returning senior appointments to the Garda Commissioner.

I thank Deputy Howlin and acknowledge his long-standing interest in reform of An Garda Síochána. I also acknowledge the work he did in driving that forward in the previous Government. We had a chance at Cabinet this morning to discuss the recommendations of the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland. That was chaired, as Deputy Howlin knows, by Ms Kathleen O'Toole. We have agreed to accept the 157 recommendations, 136 in full and 21 in principle. There are some difficulties with those 21 recommendations. We are accepting them in principle but, for example, we do not agree that the Garda Commissioner could set pay because pay policy is centrally bargained. We could not have the Garda Commissioner setting pay and then not have school principals or hospital managers doing the same. We do have difficulty, therefore, with aspects of the report and there is some work to do.

It is a good report and a good opportunity to reform our police service to make it better than it has ever been. I believe now is a good opportunity because we have new leadership with the new Commissioner, we have a plan for reform from the O'Toole commission, and we have the resources in the form of an increasing budget for An Garda Síochána as well as increasing numbers of gardaí.

We are in a good place to bring about Garda reform and improvements in our policing service, particularly community policing. Part of the structural reform put forward is about strengthening GSOC, turning it into an independent police ombudsman with more resources and authority to investigate complaints about gardaí. It involves putting elements of the Policing Authority and the Garda Inspectorate together into a new oversight body called the policing and community oversight safety commission, PSOC. This will ensure it is not a case of oversight being diluted but of creating a new oversight body.

Crucial to the recommendations is that the Garda Commissioner should be allowed to become a true CEO of his or her organisation. Some people feel that in recent years it has been hard for the Garda Commissioner, whoever it is, to run the Garda because of accountability to the Garda Inspectorate, the Policing Authority, GSOC and the Departments of Public Expenditure and Reform and Justice and Equality. It is hard to do one’s job when one is accountable to five different bodies at different times. In any organisation, the chief executive officer is accountable to a board within the organisation. The O'Toole commission recommended we move to the type of structure where the Garda Commissioner can become a true CEO and run his or her own organisation but does not have a free hand to do whatever he or she likes. The commissioner will still be accountable to the Garda board and then to the structures above it.

This will require significant legislation and that specific change will require a debate in the Dáil. We will certainly be happy to hear the views of Opposition parties because that change can only be made with a majority vote in the Oireachtas and not just by a decision of the Government.

I warmly welcome the bulk of recommendations and I welcomed the process when it was inaugurated. It really is a transforming moment for which we have waited a long time. There is one net issue, however. The report stated that the right mix of skills can be achieved by giving the Garda Commissioner the freedom to design his own team. It cannot be right for whoever is at the apex of the Garda Síochána to design and select the management team of An Garda Síochána. That is not how any Department works. The Secretary General of a Department does not pick all the senior civil servants. The CEO of an agency of the State, be it IDA Ireland, Enterprise Ireland or the Environmental Protection Agency, does not pick the key personnel to be appointed. It made a profound difference when we handed the function of appointing the most senior gardaí to an independent commission. To go back on that would undermine this really important raft of reforms. Eddie Molloy is somebody who I have relied upon for intuitive and knowledgeable advice for many years. His minority report is worth reading. Will the Taoiseach reflect long and hard on this one net issue?

As I understand it, none of this will actually change. The new framework will not be in place until 1 January 2021. That is quite some time away. It will require primary legislation, which will have to be scrutinised and considered by the Oireachtas Committee on Justice and Equality, the Dáil and the Seanad. This is an issue which we can tease out. We want to get this right.

My understanding of the commission’s recommendations, having discussed the report with Kathleen O’Toole, is that the idea the majority of members are putting forward is that we-----

I have spoken to Kathleen O’Toole too.

-----should have a CEO type model and the Garda Commissioner should be allowed to run the Garda in the same way as the CEO of any organisation is allowed to run it.

The Garda is not a business.

It is not a case of hand-picking appointments and promotions. There will be a Garda board in place. One will see many organisations in the public and private sector with a CEO and a board. The CEO does not get to hand-pick key staff. That has to go through a board and there has to a proper recruitment procedure where people can apply for jobs.

There also has to be external people.

One development we want to see, of which I know the Garda Commissioner, Drew Harris, is in favour, is more people coming in from the outside. We have a division in the Garda between sworn gardaí and Garda civilian staff. We want to put that together into a single organisation. We want to have in Garda top brass and senior management a mix of people, some who are sworn policemen and others who are experts coming in from other parts of the public service and outside.