To many observers, the £75 million deal completed last year between the Garda and the mobile phone company Esat Digifone was, at the very least, a surprising development. It was an unlikely alliance: a thrusting private communications company from the private sector - and Telecom's main competitor - was allowed to hitch its wagon to a highly sensitive arm of the State service. Those who harboured concerns about the feasibility of the Esat/Garda deal will not have been reassured by the growing dispute between Garda rank-and-file members and the Garda authorities over the issue. The Garda Representative Association (GRA) is now seeking an inquiry into the Esat agreement after the Garda authorities appeared to signal that some rural Garda stations might be closed unless Esat was allowed to erect 450 mobile phone masts at Garda stations throughout the State. The association maintains that the mobile phone masts represent a potential danger to the health and safety of its members and their families. The GRA asks why a private company was given exclusive access to Garda locations. But the answer is very simple: Esat secured the right to fit antennae on radio masts as part of the commercial deal it negotiated with the Department of Justice. This agreement may have been unusual but, on any objective business criteria, it did yield substantial benefits for both parties. For Esat, it represented the best means of building up the company's network at a relatively inexpensive price. And the plan to share masts with the Garda provided, perhaps, the best means of expediting the inevitable planning difficulties associated with mobile phone masts.
But there are also substantial advantages for the Garda in the agreement as it seeks to build a new, updated radio network. As part of the agreement Esat will build all the new masts, and provide necessary replacements at an estimated cost of some £37 million. Critically, the force also gains access to a secure, encrypted, telecommunications network which can be linked into the new multi-million pound computer system. The concerns raised by the GRA about the possible safety risks and the approach of management in pushing the agreement through are serious and well motivated. The health risks associated with mobile phone technology remain unclear but there is sufficient medical attention to raise very real concerns. There is also something unseemly about individual Garda officers receiving free mobile phone services as part of the deal. And the suggestion by Garda management that senior officers should lobby local authorities officials in order to help secure planning permissions is questionable. That said, Garda management has a responsibility to take the wider view and to assess what is in the best long-term interests of the force. Some facts are indisputable. The deal that has been agreed with Esat cannot be undone. Garda stations, particularly those in outlying rural areas, require updated communications equipment. But it might also be pointed out that the Garda and the Department of Justice are not philanthropists. The force has allowed Esat to share its masts because as one senior officer, in a leaked circular, noted: "We do not have the finance to do it ourselves."