The president of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (Agsi) told his members this evening that they would be minders for a disloyal, amateur branch of An Garda Síochana if plans for the introduction of a garda reserve force are put into effect by the Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell.
Joe Dirwan, president of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors, addressed some 1,000 senior gardaí and insisted the planned garda reserve was a Mad Hatter idea designed to undermine the force.
Mr Dirwan, a Detective Sergeant in Monaghan, asked: "Again, what will happen to the work generated by a member of the Reserve?
"Simple. No problem. Members of garda and sergeant rank will take it up and process it. Problem solved. Things go wrong. Mistakes are made." He went on: "Who then carries the can? You do, that's the answer to that one. Well, you can't expect untrained, amateur police people to be blamed, now can you? You are going to be their minders and minders are responsible."
"Let's say openly what this Garda Reserve proposal is all about. It's about a cosmetic visibility and it's about policing on the cheap. Minister McDowell does not want to pay for recruiting gardai and he does not want to pay for training them."
Addressing over 1,000 members of AGSI and the Garda Representative Association, Mr Dirwan also blamed garda management for creating the need for a reserve by compounding staffing problems as extra specialist detective units were set up.
"It is a direct attack on the force which has been in the front line of defending this state since its inception in 1922," he said. "Yet here we have a Minister for Justice proposing to hand full police powers to untrained, volunteer citizens who will be able to walk away when things get tough and who will have no loyalty to the service or to you.
"There are also not enough gardai because garda management has created specialist unit upon specialist unit without regard for the fact that by doing so they are stripping the regular units of their personnel."
Mr Dirwan said the Justice Minister's answer to staff shortages was to create an unpaid corps of untrained, unpaid, uniform wearers to produce a cosmetic appearance of gardai in the run-up to the next election.
The AGSI chief said: "He is in fact telling the communities that they will have to police themselves. "The political commentators and the politicians are in fact saying that anyone can do a garda's work. Just put the uniform on and go out and, in the famous words of one senior garda officer 'just do the best you can'.
Mr Dirwan said the amateur reservists would be offered only 3% of the training given to full-time gardai. He also claimed part-time gardai would only be required to participate, not to qualify or pass final exams, nor would they have to complete a physical test. Mr Dirwan noted that police reserves or special constables only existed in five European countries.
He said they represented between 7% to 10% of the total police strength but claimed the Justice Minister had proposed a reserve of up to 40% of the garda rank. The AGSI and GRA annual conferences will table motions of non-cooperation on the reserve plans.