Mongrel force should be muzzled and not allowed patrol the streets

IT SAYS a lot when the country’s Human Rights Commission (HRC) is worried about Justice Minister Michael McDowell’s daft idea about recruiting wannabe gardaí.

With his announcement this week that he wants to recruit 1,400 volunteer

gardaí, the minister would appear to be planning to turn the Garda Síochána into some kind of FCA.

If it ever happens, they will probably be trained by the 2,000 full-time members promised before the last general election, who have so far failed to report for duty. In fact, they have failed to appear.

Not that there's anything wrong with the FCA. At least they can't arrest anybody unlike this proposed new unit on which the minister intends to bestow the same powers, duties, immunities and privileges as full-time gardaí.

The general population won't have this off-the-wall idea inflicted on them for another five years and given the Government's pathetic record so far on garda recruitment, it probably never will.

But if it ever does, it will present the frightening possibility of unleashing 1,400 gung-ho deputy sheriffs on an unsuspecting public; lads and lassies who want the uniform and power while hanging onto the day job.

It conjures up an image of calling out the washing machine repair man who then flashes a badge and demands to know why the car in your driveway isn't taxed.

It's no surprise that the garda associations are concerned because it is a transparent ploy to tell the public that extra gardaí are being put on the streets when they're not.

The Human Rights Commission is totally opposed to the volunteer force because it would be giving the exercise of police powers to 'non-gardaí'.

"We believe that individuals who have not undergone any serious period of police training and education should not be granted legal power to arrest and use reasonable force," said a statement.

But the minister did say something which makes such obvious commonsense he should really do something about it.

Mr McDowell said he wanted to make it very clear to both the garda representative associations and the public that in no way did he consider a garda reserve to be an adequate substitute for a professional, full-time police force.

So he shouldn't, because nobody else does either.

What he should do is forget about the volunteers until the gardaí get the extra 2,000 full-time members he promised before the election, but promptly forgot about when the Government was returned to power.

The likelihood is they will remain forgotten about, or else transmogrified into this new mongrel unit with the power, but not the standards, of a full-time force.

Had the minister confined his proposals to use volunteers only to steward major sporting occasions and parades, as well as processing traffic offences and other administrative functions, the idea would not be so attractive to wannabe officers.

But give them all the powers of a garda and suddenly it becomes more appealing as they confuse themselves with some macho TV character kicking down doors and slapping handcuffs on anything that moves.

People are always complaining that there's never a garda around when needed, but I still don't think people want to see the butcher, the baker and the candlestick-maker responding to their call for aid in the guise of volunteer gardaí.

This will happen if the provisions enabling the establishment of the force remain in the Garda Síochána Bill 2004, which is currently before the Dáil.

The public do not want a volunteer force pretending to be real gardaí. They want real gardaí.

If the minister wants to put more gardaí on the streets by employing civilians to do largely administrative work, that's fine. But he should not give them powers and uniforms and call them gardaí.

Meanwhile, before the volunteers are unleashed on the public, maybe the real gardaí or police will produce a scrap of evidence that the IRA carried out the raid on the Northern Bank before Christmas.

At this stage most people are inclined to believe they did if only because Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair have been convinced by what they have heard from their respective police chiefs and the Independent Monitoring Commission.

WHAT'S perplexing is that, so far, no evidence has been produced to back up their conviction and rebut the flat denial from the IRA and the one from Sinn Féin that they had any prior knowledge of it. Not a great example for volunteer policemen.

Then the IRA issued a statement from 'P O'Neill' to the effect that their offer of complete decommissioning was off the table. There was no immediate response from the Government.

It's intriguing to try to picture what would be the state of play in Northern Ireland today had Ian Paisley not been so adamant about photographic evidence of decommissioning and had not uttered his "sackcloth and ashes" comment.

Remember that the negotiations up to then were on the verge of transforming the North with the very real prospect of peace. On the table was an offer of complete decommissioning, an end to physical force by republicans, fundamental security changes, greater progress on policing and, ultimately, Sinn Féin power-sharing with the DUP.

Everything was looking so good that the North was going to get its best ever Christmas present the end of paramilitary activities.

Then came Paisley's photographic evidence demand, despite the fact that the IRA was prepared to have the decommissioning of its weapons witnessed by Catholic and Protestant clergymen, as well as the De Chastelain commission.

Paisley then taunted them with his inane remarks, obviously aimed at achieving the result which they produced. Everything was stymied again.

Then came the Northern Bank raid and the immediate assumption that the IRA did it. Maybe they did, but nobody knows for sure.

PSNI Chief Constable Hugh Orde eventually gave his opinion that it was the IRA and everybody else started singing from the same hymn-sheet.

From a public perspective, it's disconcerting that the IRA are automatically in the frame not because they couldn't do it, but because there's not a shred of evidence to show they did.

There's also the question of their absolute denial, and while it might be naive to believe them, their demeanour through years of negotiations and the ceasefire has brought tremendous progress in the peace process. Maybe we'll have to await McDowell's volunteers to find the Northern Bank robbers because the crime probably still won't be resolved in five years' time.