Madam, - With regard to the report in last Wednesday's edition headed, "Gardaí to shun talks on proposed reserve force", and your Editorial of the same day, it is disingenuous to suggest that Michael McDowell's officials had a private meeting with both the GRA and ASGI on this issue last Tuesday.
We had a scheduled meeting at the Department of the Taoiseach to discuss the progress of pay talks which we are not allowed to attend. We were informed, ironically enough, that the talks were still on the protection of employment issue. Present at this meeting were representatives of all other Garda staff associations, including superintendents, and chief superintendents.
Also present were officials from the Departments of the Taoiseach, Finance and Justice. But no private tête-à-tête took place between us or these Justice officials and it is indicative of a rattled Michael McDowell when he seeks to portray himself as being conciliatory and leaving his door open for consultation while at the same time spinning inaccuracies.
The time for consultation is long past. It should have been conducted before the proposal was characteristically bludgeoned through by the Minister without a thought for those who have to make this plan a reality. Consultation at this stage, after everything has already being agreed upon over our heads, is pointless.
We are conducting this campaign not only out of concern for our members but also for the benefit of Irish society whose security we are charged with upholding. People deserve better than a rag-tag pseudo-police force and have put up with enough delays in proper police service delivery to be brushed off with a political gimmick.
Our members deal with requests from the public every day to call out and investigate one matter or another and are simply not able to answer them all purely because there are not enough gardaí. This is damaging our relationship with the public and giving the impression gardaí don't care about the lesser crimes perpetrated on ordinary people. With the Minister for Justice saying there is an acceptable level of crime that we must put up with, that is hardly surprising.
Making some untrained and unpaid individual available to the hard-pressed people of this country for a miserly four hours a week will not change this.
Most people would be concerned if they knew of the real level of policing in their particular area as more and more gardaí retire and the stations they serve in lie empty (but not closed, as Mr McDowell would have it). In relation to our supposed concerns about a decline in overtime, as mentioned by a previous reader, we have for the past decade called for an optimum number survey to show the real increase in Garda numbers required, which we believe is far closer to 4,000 than the much touted 2,000. We would hardly be asking for more gardaí if we were worried about overtime.
We are one of the few professions whose members take a solemn oath at the outset of our careers. We believe this is sacred and we view any attempt to devalue its sovereignty as an attack on this pledge and the people we serve.
Will reservists be required to take the same oath and hold to it accordingly under the same regulations? The difference between the proposed Garda Reserve and what the Irish people deserve as a police force is a fudge too far on behalf of this Government and too dangerous to be allowed to succeed.
Michael McDowell may well get his reserve force but we will not work with them. "City Hall" will fall on its own sword on this one. - Yours, etc,
P.J. STONE, General Secretary, Garda Representative Association, Phibsboro, Dublin 7.