Garda Síochána (Powers) Bill 2026 [Seanad]: Second Stage Dail Éireann — 2026-09-16 ============================================================ Danny Healy-Rae (IND), Kerry I thank the Ceann Comhairle. I, too, am very disappointed with the news that my brother was assaulted going out the road in the car. It is not on. He was just doing his work, or going wherever he was going. He was stopped on the road and someone hit him through the window. It is not good enough. I hope he will be all right. I hope his family will be all right. It is something that is hurting me as much as anyone else. These things should not happen to public representatives. We get elected to help the people and not to hurt them. If we cannot do right by everyone, it is tough. We cannot please everyone. We are doing our best, and it is unfair to hit a fellow through the window without him being able to defend himself. I hope he will be all right before morning and that he will be out again tomorrow. I appreciate this Bill but I have a few concerns. The Minister mentioned electronic devices that are being used to store information. The Garda needs to get at them. It must be allowed to get that information. The scourge of drugs is driving people mad. It has families finished when one person gets hooked on these drugs. Sisters, brothers, fathers and mothers are driven around the bend when something happens to their son or daughter. This is happening. The work the gardaí are doing and the amount of drugs they are seizing are amazing. There is certainly a lot. We appreciate every day that we hear of drugs worth millions being seized, but there are more coming in. They are coming in along our coast. The Government took down our Garda stations. I am not saying the current Minister did so, but previous Governments dismantled the Garda service we had. There are people coming into communities now and nobody knows who they are. They have that advantage over the system. Before, a local garda knew who everyone was in every part of the parish. We are missing that now. It needs to be rectified because the information local gardaí got on the ground was never wrong. They had knowledge of all the people. We have lost that. The Minister mentioned drones for searching places. I hope a search warrant will still have to be initiated to allow a drone to search, in the same way that the superintendent had to request a search warrant in the District Court. That used to be the way before. We cannot have people saying people's rights were intruded upon. The recognised way was always to have the superintendent look for a search warrant for his team. That will be maintained. Will it be the same for drones? I am worried about drones going over people's private property. We have to move with the times and the gardaí have to be allowed to do their job. They have to get all the modern technology to deal with the advances criminals are making with their technology and devices. I appreciate the Minister's work on this. We have to apprehend the criminals, who are doing massive damage to young people and families right around Ireland, including rural towns and villages. The problem is rife everywhere and we must all work together to ensure these fellows are rooted out and their activity is minimised to the maximum extent. --- 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