Policing bodies ‘must have teeth’

A SENIOR policing official has warned that Justice Minister Michael McDowell’s planned Joint Policing Committees will be ineffective unless they are give proper powers and a defined role.

Northern Ireland Policing Board vice chairman Denis Bradley said the new bodies, which are to be formed between local authorities and the gardaí under the Garda Síochána Bill 2004, were in danger of becoming “parish councils”.

“The bill still does not define what the committees are going to do, or what they are about. There’s not enough clarity,” he claimed.

“'Now is the time to get this right, not in 10 years’ time when people might be calling for a review of the legislation.”

Mr Bradley was speaking at the annual conference of the Association of Municipal Authorities (AMAI), in Listowel, Co Kerry, where he stressed the importance of proper local policing committees. He said many gardaí no longer lived in the communities in which they served as society was paying them well enough to be middle-class and they had moved away from working-class areas.

Local policing committees would enable communities to “re-engage” and work with the gardaí, which was vital for the effective functioning of the force, he said. He said that, in the North, police were not represented on such committees.

Delegates unanimously passed a motion calling for an amendment to the 2004 bill to allow town councils’ representation on the committees. AMAI president Mark Dalton attacked the exclusion of town councilllors, who had long been seeking a role in the policing of their areas, from the committees.

Cllr Ted Fitzgerald, Tralee Town Council, said: “I want to know what gardaí are doing with resources.”