Garda Síochána (Powers) Bill 2026 [Seanad]: Second Stage Dail Éireann — 2026-09-16 ============================================================ Jen Cummins (SD), Dublin South-Central Like my colleague, Deputy Gannon, I welcome aspects of this Bill. It is important that gardaí are able to police our communities in the most effective way possible and that things are clear as to how communities will be policed and how their safety will be affected. To that end, I was at a safety forum meeting in my constituency on Monday and tonight I will be at another one. For years, the conversation has been that communities like mine in Dublin South-Central want more gardaí, particularly gardaí with powers to do what they need to do to ensure the laws are being upheld. E-scooters were mentioned on Monday and will be mentioned tonight as well. Gardaí need to be able to pursue people on e-scooters who are speeding and doing all those things. People in my constituency want more community guards and juvenile liaison officers. Those gardaí are fundamentally important to ensuring we live in a safe community. It is important there be a human rights element to anything that is happening with regard to policing and it is important when the laws this Bill proposes come into place that the person being stopped and searched understands exactly what that means, and not only at the time it happens. I have not been arrested but if I were, I am sure my senses would be heightened and I probably would not hear what the garda says to me. We need public engagement on what it means. If you are being stopped and searched, you need to know what your rights are, what the gardaí can do and how your human rights are protected. For years I was a youth worker. We had things we were able to explain to young people: "If you are stopped, these are your rights." It is important that be protected for young people and adults; I am talking about young people because I have a background of working with them, particularly young people at risk. In addition to what is being proposed, I ask that an information campaign be undertaken to ensure people know their rights. It has already been covered but journalists' sources are really important. Most people in the House will be watching "RTÉ Investigates" tonight with Rita O'Reilly's report. It is important journalists' sources continue to be protected and that journalists remain independent and allowed do the things they are supposed to be able to do. There is over-policing in certain areas. I would love to see appropriate policing in working-class areas. On one hand, there are not enough guards; on the other, there is stop and search. As other Deputies have said, people have been stopped and searched because of where they live, how they look, etc. The profiling of people being stopped and searched is important. We need to listen to groups and ethnic minorities who have raised this concern. When collecting data about people - whether that is where they live, how they look or where they come from - the data should be collected for a specific reason and it should be outlined clearly why it is being collected and what is being done with it. We will be able to use the data, if that is the way we collect it, to make sure there is not racial profiling going on, but it needs to be made explicit why it is being collected and for what. With regard to the community that I live in, I was on the radio recently discussing the provision in relation to parental responsibility that is being considered under the juvenile justice system. That already exists under the Child Care Act. Parents are already obliged to do that, but it is not necessarily enforced. It is not necessarily the first thing that happens. I am also very concerned about the young people who are involved in the criminal justice system. As I have said before in this House, I worked in the school completion programme for almost two decades. Over that period, we lost children from education because they were groomed into criminal behaviour by adults. I recall, while working in that area, that Fagin's law was introduced. I thought it would be fantastic. There have only been a handful of convictions. A handful of convictions or charges is not good enough because the problem is so widespread. I worked with thousands of children and we lost hundreds of children in the communities I worked in because they were groomed into criminal behaviour. We need to use the laws in place to stop that sort of thing going on. The Minister mentioned the special care places for children in the summer. Thousands of young people are not being supported. There are 26 special care places and only 15 of those beds are available in the springtime. We know what the problems are. We need to ramp up the support that is in place because for young people, it can be somewhere where they can find solace from the chaos going on in their lives, which leads to further chaos. However, if they are not being supported, they will continue in that. As has been said lately, their parents are not able to support them, so we need to ramp up supports. The rights of the child are important in this, as are the rights of all people of all ages with regard to policing. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-16/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:48+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-09-16