THE GOVERNMENT has no plans to change the current arrangement whereby Cabinet members and the two “super junior” Ministers who sit at the Cabinet table, each has a State car and Garda security detail.
Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern referred yesterday to the “requirement and necessity for security” and said “we don’t propose to change that in any way here”.
He was speaking after protesters threw eggs and cheese yesterday at a car carrying Minister for Health Mary Harney as she was arriving at the Mid-Western Regional Hospital in Nenagh, Co Tipperary.
It is the second incident involving the Minister after red paint was thrown at her two weeks ago in Dublin.
Mr Ahern said that the public “are fair. They understand that Ministers have to do their job. There are some people who do things like that and I don’t think the vast majority of the Irish people support that type of thing”.
He added that “thankfully we don’t have a situation that pertained in the North over the years in relation to the huge security that is needed for public figures.
“Recent events tend to tailor or colour people’s views as to what is necessary or isn’t necessary.”
Mr Ahern was speaking to journalists as he and Northern Ireland Minister for Justice David Ford were attending a cross-Border probation service public protection conference.
Mr Ford warned against “overstating” the dissident republican problem.
“It clearly is a problem at the moment which is growing but it is a limited problem. We shouldn’t overstate it.”
Asked about a report which claimed the PSNI and MI5 were struggling to cope with dissident republicans, because of the disbandment of the RUC’s special branch and the loss of its “corporate memory”, Mr Ford said extremely good work was being done by “PSNI officers supported by officers of An Garda Síochána with very limited support from outside being required”.
He stressed that “cross-Border co-operation and good community engagement on both sides of the Border is leading to significant successes against those who are opposed to the peace process”.
He said some 70 people had been charged in the North with terrorist offences and “a significant number also charged this side of the Border. It’s a sign of extremely good work being done”.
Asked what cuts the probation service could expect in the budget, Mr Ahern said no area would be immune from cuts but “given the fact that the probation services have been built up very significantly in the last number of years with a lot of extra staff taken on I think they will have the capacity to cope”.
He said that the probation service “has extra capacity. A value-for-money audit was done in 2009 which indicated that they were only at 33 per cent capacity in relation to community service orders.”
