Too many laws for gardai to enforce
The Dail is producing so much legislation that the gardai are "struggling" to keep up with the changes.
Government Deputy Chief Whip John Curran TD discovered last year that after the much hyped 'Anti-Social Behaviour Order' legislation was passed not one ASBO had been enforced.
Now, in a recent conversations with senior gardai, the Fianna Fail TD was told: "One of the key problems with the enforcement of justice is that we're passing so much legislation many gardai are not familiar with its provisions''.
Curran said this has created a situation where changes made by the Dail to the law "are happening in theory rather than practice.''
The TD claimed that "there isn't much point in passing 130-page Criminal Justice Bills with hundreds of proposals if gardai do not know what is in them.''
Curran suggested one solution to the problem would be to end "the present scenario where there is no programme to train gardai or provide refresher courses to keep them up to date with changes in the law.''
Speaking off the record, another TD claimed that "a number of gardai have told (him) that they did not have a clue about how to impose an ASBO.''
In a separate development, the former Fine Gael Justice spokesperson John Deasy also claimed much of our "heavily-hyped'' justice legislation is "a waste of time and effort.''
He was responding to an admission by Justice Minister Brian Lenihan that there has not been a single conviction under legislation contained in the 2007 Criminal Justice Act which created two new offences concerning the "possession of arms intended for use in connection for certain offences'' such as murder, kidnapping and GBH.
- JOHN DRENNAN
