MY LATE DAD WOULD BE SO PROUD
GARDA CHIEF DREW HARRIS ON HIS NEW POSTING
THE Republic’s new Garda Commissioner — former PSNI Deputy Chief Constable Drew Harris — has spoken of the pride he is sure his late father Alwyn would have felt at his appointment.
Alwyn Harris was an RUC superintendent before he was murdered by an IRA gang in 1989 when a car bomb exploded under his car as he was on his way to a thanksgiving church service with his wife.
The Provisional IRA had strapped Semtex under his car which detonated not far from their house. Mr Harris (55) died instantly. His wife survived.
Their son Drew made Irish history two weeks ago when he was sworn in as the first person from an outside police force to head up An Garda Siochana. He told the Sunday Times it was a moment he felt sure would have made his father “exceptionally proud”.
He said: “My father would have been very proud of me, the way any father would be of their son.
“He would have always wanted me to do well, to bring up my family, work hard at my job, which was police work.
“I think he would be exceptionally proud of the position I have attained.”
Mr Harris, then aged 24, had reached the rank of sergeant by the time of his father’s murder.
“I took about a week off and tried to get back to work and I only lasted a short time, maybe a week, and then I had to take about three weeks off. I went back too quickly,” he told the Sunday Independent.
“It was a terrible time. In some ways it remains, for me, beyond description and it has reverberated down through the years as well.
“I think it actually shapes your approach to humanity and what sort of person you are. I have worked — and certainly worked hard in those early years — to try not to be bitter and I hope I have succeeded in that.”
He said he has not forgiven the killers.
“They never asked for my forgiveness,” he said.
“Forgiveness is a two-way street. They never asked for it and I don’t think they ever will. I try to act in effect how my father would have wanted me to, which is actually get on with your life, bring up your family, do well, do the best at your job that you can.”
He described the murder as nothing more than a “practical demonstration of hatred”.
“All it proved was that they were motivated by hatred and were going to murder through hatred — that’s all it illustrated. It proved no other point. It served no purpose and it has hung over my family and I’ve had to cope with that for 29 years, and even more so for my mother as well,” he added.
As well as being the first outsider, Mr Harris is also the first Garda Commissioner to have been advised not to be without armed protection when out and about.
He said: “The reality of my policing career is that I’ve been under threat from both republican and loyalist groups. What am I to do? Am I to say, ‘Okay, well, I’m going to throw the towel in and retreat from public life and it will simmer down’?
“I’ve chosen not to do that. I’ve chosen to serve and do my public duty in both Northern Ireland and here.
“I have been out and about throughout the summer, but sensible precautions have to be taken. It’s part of policing. The role of An Garda Siochana is to face down these threats and not be intimidated.”
Mr Harris said he is concerned about the effect of Brexit on policing.
He said: “Obviously there will be additional opportunities to those who smuggle.
“We are alive to these threats. We need to see how they manifest themselves, but it may not be Armageddon. There is already smuggling across the border.”