McDowell urges gardaí to back reserve plans
Justice Minister Michael McDowell tonight called on garda associations to back him on plans for a 4,000-strong volunteer garda reserve force.
The minister, who wants to see 900 of the voluntary officers trained up this year, said he was in the business of radical reform of An Garda Siochana.
Mr McDowell claimed the force had to change in order to prosper.
“The real question is have people the bottle for change, and do they want Ireland to be a society where we get on top of the crime problem,” he said.
The minister also said there was a choice between gardai with roots in their community or a commuter force travelling long distances to cover a beat.
“It has to change in order to prosper, and I’m saying to everybody in the force: back me on this, I’m backing An Garda Siochana, I’m building up the numbers of the force, I’m giving them record resources.
“Back me on this, because I know it’s the future,” he said.
In response to fears by organisations such as the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI) and the Garda Representative Association (GRA) over powers of arrest, he acknowledged the reservists would be given the right to arrest for things such as obstruction and public order offences.
“You’d be a very peculiar reserve policeman if you couldn’t arrest somebody who’s obstructing you, and right across the world as the representative associations well know, every volunteer reservist in every police force – and there’s many which work extremely well – has a power of arrest,” he said.
“It doesn’t threaten anybody’s living standards and it doesn’t threaten anybody’s safety.”
While Mr McDowell said he had not yet drawn up detailed plans on training of the volunteers, he acknowledged it would be to a lower level than professional gardai.
“Quite obviously they won’t spend two years in Templemore,” he said.
“You’re not going to have them at the same level of training but they’ll always be operating under the supervision of experienced full-time gardai,” he told RTE Radio.
But Joe Dirwan, president of AGSI, rejected the proposals which he claimed were already fleshed out.
He said the association had received briefings from the Garda Commissioner setting out the details of how the reservists would be trained.
Mr Dirwan said the volunteers would have only 24 hours training, in relation to basic law and garda procedures, and would have full powers of arrest.
“In the view of Assistant Garda Sergeants and Inspectors who are the mid-ranking rank of An Garda Siochana, responsible for supervision 24/7, there’s no reserve proposals acceptable.
“What we require is that the full-time force is properly resourced and the minister is failing us,” he said.
