The Government's proposal to introduce, on a pilot basis, a new warden system to enforce local authority regulations should be considered carefully and must be monitored closely. At first glance, it seems a sensible and practical response to a need which is increasingly evident throughout a community where civic duty is too frequently violated. But there are potential dangers in any such initiative and it is essential that there should be a realistic understanding of what it may hold for the future.
This State is rich in law and regulation but poor in observance and enforcement. Traffic regulation and driving standards are abysmal. Many country roads resemble linear refuse dumps, punctuated with notices threatening fines for litter. Countless, minor infringements of the individual's rights to peace and privacy are recorded daily and nightly. Loutish, sometimes obscene behaviour in public places is rarely checked. Visitors from abroad will acknowledge that for all our charm we are too often a disorderly, dirty and selfish people.
What the Government is now proposing amounts to a new enforcement arm. But it is not at all clear why existing enforcement agencies are not doing the job they ought to. The Republic has one of the highest police-to-population ratios in Europe. Local authorities already have the authority to appoint wardens for traffic and offences against the environment. But is it clear to anyone who walks Grafton Street at night, noting the drunks urinating against shop windows, or who watches the pedestrian population dropping its wrappers on the pavements, that the level of enforcement is low. Such high-visibility, often offensive, behaviour is rarely encountered in the principal streets of other western capitals or large cities.
There is reportedly some concern at certain levels of the Garda over what is proposed. The concept of a national, single-level police police force would be threatened by such an initiative. If the Garda is cut off from contact with the population across a range of minor enforcement functions it may lose contact with the grass roots, resulting in a loss of local knowledge and trust. This is a valid cause for concern. Many European countries have a police municipale discharging functions which are envisaged for the wardens here. Serious crime remains the responsibility of the national police. But it creates a two-tier system, with rivalries between agencies and with the national police personnel cut off or distant from the population, often with adverse results.
If a warden system, such as that proposed, comes into existence on a national basis it is difficult to see that it will not become, in effect, a network of polices municipales. If its members encounter crime, or a violent threat to citizens, or life-and-death crises, they will not be able merely to stand back and telephone for the guards. Ultimately, they will have to be trained, equipped and given the necessary legal powers to enable them to do what the citizen expects of a uniformed officer of the State in a dangerous or confrontational situation.
The Garda may not like it. The civil liberties groups, no doubt, will want reassurances. But on balance it is probably the lesser of two evils. If our natural sense of civic duty and community responsibility is so lacking then it is up to the State to apply effective enforcement systems.