Resources and reform are what the gardaí need — not stun guns

MORE aggressive policing? Did I understand that right? Reading my Irish Examiner yesterday, it was revealed that the gardaí, apparently with the support of Fine Gael, want stun guns to deal with “violent protests and public disorder”. These stun guns, it seems, are capable of causing temporary paralysis with a 50,000 volt electric shock.

(Amnesty International reports that a number of governments routinely use stun weapons to extract confessions from political prisoners. These governments know that electrical torture leaves less evidence than many other methods. The shock from a stun gun is extremely painful, but it doesn't leave an obvious wound. But there's no need to go into that, I imagine. Sure we'd never abuse a weapon like that, would we?)

To come back to the point. More aggressive policing where, out of the wide blue yonder, did that demand come from? As you read the story, you realise that someone in the gardaí is predicting that next year, when Ireland holds the EU presidency, someone somewhere might be tempted to mount a violent protest.

"Last week," the story continues, "the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors warned of serious injuries to police and demonstrators next year unless gardaí were equipped, prepared and funded. General secretary George Maybury said gardaí would be confronted by a militant minority intent on causing trouble at EU summits."

John Deasy, the Fine Gael spokesman on Justice, is quoted in the story as supporting this notion. "In some cases, in urban areas, guards are facing gangs of drink-fuelled and drug-fuelled people and they can't deal with them," he said.

"In many jurisdictions they use non-lethal weapons for crowd control. To allow gardaí do their job effectively they should have them."

No, John, I don't think so. Once stun guns are supplied to the gardaí, they will be brought along to every demonstration "just in case" a situation gets out of hand. Sooner or later, because they are available, they will be used, perhaps appropriately, perhaps not. When someone is hurt or has a heart attack in the middle of a situation where they shouldn't have been used, there will be no way of getting a satisfactory explanation. The same John Deasy will probably have questions down in the Dáil, and will have to be satisfied with the standard answer that this was an operational matter, and as you know, we never comment on operational matters.

At the moment, it appears that gardaí are unwilling to implement the full penalty points system except on their own terms. They have grudgingly implemented the system in respect of speeding, and all the signs are that it has been a significant success in terms of saving lives. But they still insist that they're not prepared to implement the system in respect of other known killer violations, such as failure to use a seat belt.

There are two things we need where policing is concerned. More policing is one. More accountable policing is another. More aggressive policing we certainly don't need.

Implementing the penalty points system in full, even if it meant some minor inconvenience to the gardaí involved, would be an example of more policing. But there are other, even more urgent examples.

Within the last few days, as we know, a man was beaten to within an inch of his life just off Grafton Street. If there is one street in Ireland where one would expect a cry for help to bring a garda running, it's Grafton Street. If things have really come to such a pass that Ireland's most pedestrianised and most popular street isn't safe around the clock, what kind of state are we becoming? And you may perhaps have read about the garda who tried to send letters to several TDs about a humanitarian issue (not in Ireland) about which he was concerned.

The letters were handed into Dáil Eireann about two months after the September 11 bombing in New York. Someone conceived the view that the envelopes might have anthrax in them, and they were intercepted before arriving at the TDs' offices. Despite the fact that the innocence of the letters must have been established within five minutes of opening them, they were withheld from the TDs concerned for 18 months, and disciplinary proceedings were instituted against the garda who had sent them even though he was acting entirely within his rights as a citizen.

The sequence of events here involves someone deciding to exceed their authority under a whole variety of headings. The incident certainly represents an example of unaccountable policing, to put it no more strongly than that.

One could go on for example, there is a consistently worrying undertone in the menacing remarks made by Garda representatives about the refusal of two public representatives to reveal their sources to the Morris Tribunal, while as yet there hasn't been a word of concern from the same representatives about the revelations of garda behaviour from that same source.

But the related issues of adequate policing and accountable policing are in the end of the day a matter for the Government. The Minister for Justice is well aware of them, and of the fact that they are related.

Twice last week, for instance, in speeches to garda occasions, he referred to his forthcoming Bill to establish an independent Garda Inspectorate.

Assuming such an inspectorate is truly independent, it will deserve support. There must be room for questioning, however, because the minister has promised this measure more than a dozen times now, and we have yet to see the Bill. When Brendan Howlin was Labour Spokesperson on Justice two years ago, he published a wide-ranging and detailed policy statement showing how to make the gardaí fully accountable and the key starting point is an independent but accountable Garda Authority.

When he was drawing up his proposals, Brendan Howlin used an interesting model. For many years police reform has been at the heart of community anxiety in Northern Ireland. The Patten Commission was established to develop a police service that would work, and be seen to work, in all sections of the community and would derive confidence and support from right across the community.

It has been a spectacular success in a whole variety of ways. Both the Northern Ireland Policing Board, which does a considerable amount of its work in public sessions, and the Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman, have placed the issue of policing in Northern Ireland on a much more modern footing than ours. Issues of accountability are openly discussed in Northern Ireland, not least by the police themselves. The cover-all phrase we hear so often "no comment on operational matters" is no longer used as an excuse there.

In that context, is it unreasonable to ask why are we waiting? The sad fact is that the reputation of our gardaí has been in decline for several years. Public confidence in the gardaí was shaken by the blue flu a couple of years ago, and a succession of incidents since has undermined the relationship that should always exist between the gardaí and the community they serve.

Reform and resources are both needed urgently. The one thing we surely don't need is aggression.