Mammoth challenges ahead for our policing services

TWO pieces in Saturday’s Irish Daily Mail particularly struck me. The first was about the graduation ceremony at the Garda Training College where Leo Varadkar told 199 newly qualified officers what was expected of them.

While the Taoiseach acknowledged that loyalty is ‘one of the greatest virtues’, he added: ‘Your loyalty is not to the person in the uniform. It is to the uniform. To all it stands for.’ Even the most clueless of rookies could hardly have failed to understand that.

For too long, An Garda Síochána has been an organisation that immediately circles the wagons at the first hint of criticism. There is an in-built culture of protecting their own, even when there is no excusable or justifiable reason for doing so.

It has been clear for decades now that the culture needs to change. Whether Commissioner Drew Harris, pictured left, succeeds in achieving that remains to be seen. I wish him all the best, but all my instincts tell me he faces a mammoth task.

The other piece that caught my eye was Jenny Friel’s dispatch from the No.27 bus, which runs between Clarehall and Jobstown in Dublin.

Anyone familiar with Dublin knows the horror stories about public transport. Even as a lifelong resident of the capital, I’d still have to take a few deep breaths before boarding a Luas Red Line service after dark.

But it beggars belief that people feel they can get away with smoking heroin on Dublin Bus services. There is a particularly grim irony here given that certain train services have now imposed an alcohol ban on various routes at weekends.

This column certainly wouldn’t try to pretend the leadership of the National Bus and Rail Union have covered themselves in glory in recent years. But it is hard to disagree with their call for the introduction of a dedicated policing unit for public transport.