Garda chief concerned over Brexit impact

OV ER 60 years of co-operation between law enforcement agencies in th e UK and Europe will “fall away” post-Brexit, th e Republic’s top police officer h as warned.

Garda commissioner Drew Harris also expressed h is concerns about th e impact Brexit will h ave on criminal justice matters between th e UK, Ireland and wider European police services.

Over th e past 18 month s additional resources h ave been added to th e border area, Mr Harris said, and th at gardai will ensure it remains “an area wh ere th e rule of law applies”.

“It is a fact th at a lot of th e criminal justice treaties th at th e UK is a member of will fall away for th e UK and th at is not going to simplify policing, but we are in constant operational contact with our colleagues in th e Police Service of Northern Ireland but also across the Irish sea to the UK’s National Crime Agency ,” he said.

“Our relationships are good, we’ re working through what specific issues might be. It is a fact th at th e UK, th rough Brexit, is losing access to a lot of th e EU’s criminal justice treaties and th e investigative provisions that they apply, but we can’t avoid that and we h ave to mitigate th at as much as we can in terms of our operational work with th e PSNI.

“We want to make sure we’ re still able to sh are information. If one th ink s th at th e treaty we will fall back to was written in 1959, so 60 years of improvement is going to fall away in terms of th e development of criminal justice cooperation across Europe, so it’s not going to be th e same.”

A separate report yesterday warned th at cross-border police co-operation in Ireland is at serious risk in th e event of a nodeal Brexit.

Any Brexit-related disruption could h ave serious consequences for policing, justice and extradition, according to th e study, wh ich was commissioned by th e Joint Committee of th e Irish Human Righ ts and Equality Commission and North ern Ireland Human Righ ts Commission.