Rank-and-file gardaí oppose the plan for a new Garda reserve, but politicians feel the public supports the scheme, writes Mark Hennessy, Political Correspondent
Hundreds of gardaí will gather in the Heritage Hotel in Portlaoise on Monday night to protest against the plan to set up a Garda reserve, the latest in a series of angry gatherings.
A thousand gathered in Sligo in late February, a similar number did so in Cork a week later, thunderously applauding hardline declarations.
So far politicians have shown no signs of taking fright.
Usually, the organisation of such meetings would have been enough to create nervous stirrings among TDs, particularly with little more than a year to go to an election.
So far it has not happened, partly because most TDs have not yet faced angry gardaí phalanxes in the constituencies, but, more importantly, because they believe the public backs the idea.
"The simple fact is that people want to see more gardaí on the beat. I fully support them, there is an appetite for change," said FF Dublin South Central TD Michael Mulcahy.
Fianna Fáil and Progressive Democrat TDs have rowed in behind Minister for Justice Michael McDowell's plans, though PD Minister of State Tom Parlon privately exhibited some negativity. The Opposition has been supportive. Most believe that a force of unpaid, volunteer reservists can only be a good thing. "It works everywhere else. Why can't it work here?" said a Dublin Fianna Fáil TD.
There are currently about 12,000 gardaí, although the Minister predicts a strength of 14,000 (including gardaí in training) by the end of this year.
Under the reserve plan, an additional 4,000-strong reservist force will be built over time, beginning with 900 recruits this September. Each will receive 120 hours of training spread over several months, followed by two years' probation.
Gardaí and a minority of TDs feel the arrival of the reserve will mean that a pool of free labour will be available to the Government in the future, allowing it to avoid the expense of committing resources to the main force.
This prospect has not been lost on others: the Irish Nurses' Organisation fears the reserve could serve as a model to introduce voluntary personnel to work in hospitals.
Some have also expressed concern that the reserve could attract local busybodies. Urging careful recruitment, Green Party TD Ciarán Cuffe said concerned citizens' groups often included a community's best but "also the little Himmlers" keen to tell everyone else how to live.
Emphasising the new force's local nature, the Minister, in a note to Fianna Fáil TDs, said: "Communities are frequently policed by members of the force who daily commute 30 miles or more to carry out their tour of duty... The force is in danger of becoming detached from the community. Its members are in danger of becoming relative strangers to the community they police." However, Mr McDowell curiously agreed something different with Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy as reservists "will not be deployed in their own neighbourhoods" - though the definition of "neighbourhood" has yet to be defined.
Clearly infuriated, the Garda Representative Association (GRA) and the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI) have threatened to refuse to co-operate. So far many of their public declarations have been hysterical and unconvincing, displaying a fearfulness of change.
Though the Garda lobbying on TDs is yet to come, much has changed since 1998's "blue flu" when a timorous Garda leadership and government failed to discipline gardaí for taking fraudulent sick days.
Believing that gardaí's political and public influence has waned, TDs for now are ready to be brave. "There is a big difference between this and the cafe bars row [when Mr McDowell dropped plans in the face of backbenchers' objections]. Even the publicans had support. The guards don't," said one Fianna Fáil backbencher.
The GRA and the AGSI may have a point when they argue that the Minister "sold a pup" to Cabinet when he included the reserve plan in the Garda Síochána Bill.
This Bill was dominated by far more controversial plans to set up a Garda Ombudsman and an inspectorate, and the Minister said he would consult with representative associations before the new arm was created.
While debate on the reserve was limited, some Cabinet colleagues were initially nervous about the scale of the Minister's ambitions, which some believe went further than the version now on offer. However, Mr McDowell quickly reassured them, though it is not clear if they fully understood that he would move on it so quickly.
In fact, the Minister insists he had not initially intended to do so. The legislation merely provided powers for the reserve to be created at some point, and Mr McDowell repeatedly made it clear that the Government had not made a decision to set one up.
"While the Minister was originally minded merely to provide the legal basis for , the level of cross-party support, indeed the demand, for it in the Oireachtas, combined with him seeing Special Constables in action in the UK, convinced him that it was necessary to bring forward the reserve as soon as possible," said a Department of Justice spokesperson this week.
The regulations setting out the reserve's operations in detail must return to Cabinet, though there is little doubt that Mr McDowell's actions have stymied any real further debate.
Ministers show little sign that they are nervously eyeing the landscape ahead, particularly since Commissioner Conroy has now been put out in front.
"The issue now becomes one of discipline. It has been passed by the Oireachtas; the commissioner has the authority. They will be on messy ground if they try to stand up to this indefinitely," said one Minister.
For now gardaí can try to push the plan out to 2007, in the hope it gets killed in the election rush, or else use it to secure more pay. The latter may be a more sensible course.