Legislation to reform how top-ranking Garda appointments are made has been rejected by the Minister for Justice, who said it ignored the forthcoming introduction of the independent Garda authority.
Frances Fitzgerald said: "This Bill is effectively saying that the new independent Garda authority will have no role in the most senior Garda appointments."
The Public Sector Management (Appointment of Senior Members of the Garda Síochána) Bill was introduced as a Private Members’ Bill by Independent TD Shane Ross, to remove the “nakedly political” nature of the appointment of the top positions in the Garda ranks.
Ms Fitzgerald told him that his Bill sought to address a single aspect of reform, namely the way appointments to the Garda top ranks were made.
Appreciate “I think it is important to appreciate how individual reforms, such as the way in which the most senior members of the force are appointed, must be designed to fit properly in the new policing and oversight architecture and not brought forward piecemeal in ways which do not complement each other,” Ms Fitzgerald said.
She expressed concern that the Bill “does not take into account how this might fit into the wider reforms under way”.
The Minister said the proposal for an independent Garda authority was a “top priority” for her and while it was a very challenging timetable, she planned to have the authority in place by the end of the year.
She added that one of the authority’s more obvious potential roles will be to have an involvement in the process of appointment of the most senior members of the Garda Síochána.
She said: “This Bill takes no account of the forthcoming Garda authority or the extensive consultations under way involving a wide range of voices. “Instead this Bill proposes a prescriptive approach to a singular area of reform, isolated from consideration of other reforms.”
Political arena Introducing the Bill, Mr Ross said the Garda needed to be removed from the political arena. “That is the essential principle upon which this Bill is pitched.”
He said the “beauty of the Bill” was that the appointment did not go to the Minister for Justice, a member of Cabinet. “It doesn’t become a nakedly political appointment. This happens in the top three appointments of the Gardaí.”
He added that other appointments, including those of chief superintendents and superintendents, would only be made by the appointments board. “There is no Minister involved. It is a Minister-free zone. “
Mr Ross said the reason for the Bill was because of the huge controversies. He said there could be no doubt that there was “something rotten in the Gardaí and they need to be removed above all from the political arena”.
