The GRA's PJ Stone reentered the fray in The Irish Times on Friday when he complained about gardai having to buy batteries for their torches and about the state of garda cars. And it's not as if he doesn't have a point. In some areas, An Garda Siochana is badly resourced. The recent inquest into the death of Mary Seavers, killed by a ramshackle garda car, which was in the wrong place at the wrong time because of a dodgy communications system, vividly highlighted the truth of some of Stone's complaints. "Our opposition to the reserve, " he wrote in the Times, "comes from a frustration on behalf of our members and concern that the Irish people are being sold a pup ahead of next year's general election in which crime and anti-social behaviour will figure strongly."

Stone's view seems to be that the reserve is a device to distract us from the fact that there are not enough gardai and from noticing that the government is hopelessly behind schedule in meeting its election commitments to increase significantly the number of serving gardai. "What we need is a full-time force at full strength, " he says.

"We also need to reactivate the moribund programme within the force to free up more officers and get them into front-line roles."

But why should the achievement of that aspiration rule out the establishment of the garda reserve? Why would a few hundred extra gardai, or a few thousand for that matter, eliminate the need for a force of unpaid helpers set up to take some of the pressure off gardai in the course of their work? As we're not going to get those few thousand gardai anyway, and, as there is a strong argument that they aren't actually needed, why object to a reserve which will have a primary function of assisting gardai in tasks such as the policing of football matches and pop concerts, which take up too much of their time in the first place?

Most of us would welcome such help. As I'm writing this, I'm daydreaming about having one or two little helpers who would bring me tea, give me the odd neck massage, go to HMV to get me the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs album because I'm too busy to get to the shops or, more seriously, give me a hand doing some research or proof-reading. It sounds like a good plan, and the more I think about it, the more the level of the garda opposition to the reserve, the sheer passion of it and the implied threat of strike action makes no sense.

Stone is mostly right when he talks about underfunding of the force, but that problem has existed for years, and neither the GRA nor AGSI has ever reacted with the fury and energy they are displaying now. It took the prospect of a garda reserve to produce that kind of response.

Why? My view is that the reserve, as proposed by Minister McDowell, is an enormous threat to the culture, system, customs and practices of An Garda Siochana and is perceived as precisely that by gardai all over the country. That is why they have turned out in their droves at nationwide meetings and why minister McDowell and his cabinet colleagues should not underestimate the determination to stop the reserve from being established.

One garda recently explained to me about what was termed an "us versus them attitude" within the force, which has existed for years and which has seen gardai in many communities across the country work at one remove from the people they are supposed to serve. Though this guard would like to see the introduction of the reserve, little hope was held out that it would ever see the light of day. There was too much bad behaviour within stations, too much laziness, corner-cutting and shoddy work practices for gardai to allow this to be witnessed by outsiders.

Amongst the practices referred to were "prisoners getting a few slaps after arriving in the station when the lads' blood is up"; what was termed "unofficial time off" in some suburban stations . . . two 90-minute periods in the course of the day when some gardai have a little rest; being late for court or not turning up at all; gardai not walking the beat, but being carried around in the patrol car instead; very long meal breaks.

The introduction of a civilian reserve force into garda stations would mean that most of these practices would have to end. At the moment, a blue wall of silence operates within An Garda Siochana, which means that, except on very rare occasions, gardai will cover for each other.

Throw hundreds or thousands of outsiders . . . people not in thrall to the garda culture . . . into the mix, and you will kill, with one ministerial brainwave, decades of bad workmanship.

As my garda friend said: "Outsiders are feared because they cannot be sucked into this."

Last weekend, Niamh Brennan, who is married to the minister for justice, recalled on radio how somebody had suggested to her in a butcher's shop in Ranelagh that she was feeding her husband too much red meat.

Perhaps. My advice, however, would be that she invest in some good quality fillet steaks. Because, wittingly or not, her husband has taken on a cosseted and indisciplined force, one which is clearly prepared to fight with all its strength to maintain its privileges. Michael McDowell needs all the protein he can get, and in this debate at least, as much support as the public . . . the outsiders . . . can muster.