Two senior gardai have spoken out about the Government policy of hiring business consultants - costing millions of pounds - to advise on the reorganisation of the force. The conference "The Challenge of Change: Policing 2000" in Malahide was told management consultants were being hired "at great expense" to promote "change for the sake of change".
The conference, organised by the Association of Chief Superintendents, was told that among the consultants' proposals was the "load-shedding" of non-confrontational policing from the Garda to private security firms. According to consultants, the conference heard, this would cut costs. Chief Supt John O'Brien said involving police in only confrontational situations would be "catastrophic". He said: "Load-shedding has been a favourite of police reviews the world over. The implication is that policing organisations are involved in a range of activities for which they are inappropriate. Despite this idea and different examinations in this country, it has not been possible to form a definitive list of those cores and tasks which properly belong in the police organisation or outside. The rationale for this exercise has usually been an economic one. "A shedding of police tasks could easily result in the Garda Siochana dealing only with those responsibilities which involve high-profile adversarial contact and this would be catastrophic for normal good community relations."
Chief Supt Tom Monaghan was critical of the Department of Finance-inspired strategic management initiative (SMI) process. He said: "The SMI process in the wider public service was an attempt by certain top civil service managers, mostly in the Department of Finance, or formerly of that Department, to bring greater management and financial accountability into the whole public service arena."
He said the introduction of SMI in the public service was the third attempt at organisational reform in as many decades. He went on: "The wider public service has proved stubbornly impervious to the need for a root-and-branch change to its management culture. As a result the need to be able to point to an area where SMI has been successfully applied became an urgent priority for those who invented and promoted the process. Consequently the uniform services, such as the Army and the Garda, who have traditionally, because of their role and strict internal discipline, been more compliant than the broader unionised public service, became the obvious targets.
"We now have consultants hired at great expense to the taxpayer to come up with ideas for change for the sake of change. They are suggesting we alter the way we are successfully doing things and adopt their models. However, when asked, they are unable to point to any police force in the world where the models they are now proposing are successfully operating. Models that place economy before efficiency will undermine this service.
"My association is becoming increasingly concerned about this matter, and the grave damage that could be caused to the force which has served this country well for almost 80 years. Indeed one consultant suggested the SMI steering committee should adopt a "blank sheet" approach to An Garda Siochana and pretend that the force never existed, and design a new police service for the country from scratch."
He proposed that the State increase investment in the criminal justice system at a time when there were surplus funds in the Exchequer.