The Garda Commissioner designate, Mr Pat Byrne, could scarcely be appointed at a less propitious time. The public is anguished, as never before, by the murder of Veronica Guerin. There is little public confidence that the criminal justice system can successfully confront the crime problem. The Garda force itself, meanwhile, is riven by the acrimonious dispute among the representative bodies. Morale is low. On the streets, the old confidence that the Garda could successfully combat organised crime has given way to weary resignation. A dozen gangland assassinations ink the past 18 months remain unsolved.
Mr Byrne would have to be something of a miracle worker to provide a panacea for all these problems. He has been an energetic and personable Deputy Commissioner but these personal qualities will count for little unless the Government's Review of Efficiency and Cost Effectiveness of the Garda Siochana heralds fundamental change in the relationship between the Commissioner and the Department of Justice.
The existing firm governmental control of the Garda, through the Department, means that the force's resources and its policies are often directed and re-directed to service political rather than policing objectives: gardai are despatched to the border to ward off the BSE threat, for example, when the Commissioner might prefer them fighting crime on the streets of Dublin. Like most of his predecessors, Mr Byrne could find himself in a position of great responsibility without any commensurate power - unless the strong political grip on the force, exercised by the Department of Justice, is loosened
An obvious first step would be to allow the Commissioner, and not the Department, to dictate how the Government's allocation to the force should be spent. This was promised in the Coalition's Programme for Government but it has never been implemented. The case for making the Commissioner the accounting officer for the force has never been stronger. The Garda must be allowed to stand on its own two feet: its battle against crime must not be shackled by excessive political control.
But the Garda Commissioner must also make himself much more accountable to the Dail and to the citizen. Within reason, Mr Byrne must make himself available to the relevant Oireachtas committees and to the wider public through the media. The Commissioner has a responsibility to inform the public about the true nature of the crime problem and to indicate how his force intends to respond.
It is to be hoped that the terms of reference of the review group will allow it to clarify the relationship between the Department and the Garda. The review group is some way short of the commission on the criminal justice system favoured by this newspaper, but its composition gives some grounds for optimism. It includes Mr Byrne himself; the industrialist, Mr Tony Barry, as chairman and the Cork State Solicitor, Mr Barry Galvin, an outspoken and thoughtful critic of the criminal justice system.
Mr Byrne, meanwhile, has a more immediate task. His first priority in office must be to confront the professional criminals. The situation is not hopeless; a decade ago, several so-called "untouchables" involved in heroin trafficking were arrested and imprisoned after they were targeted by detectives. Today, organised crime needs the same kind of concentrated attention with specialised undercover units and new procedures to cultivate and handle criminal informants. The prevailing wisdom in some Garda circles that the criminal drugs problem can be resolved without this kind of specialised approach needs to be challenged.