We won’t be scapegoats for senior gardai breath test scandal

GRA blames bosses for fake stats

RANK and file gardai yesterday claimed force bosses were responsible for 1.5 million fake breath tests – and insisted they won’t be “scapegoated”. The Garda Representative Association, which has more than 10,000 members, said ordinary officers could not be the only members of the force responsible for the false data. The association added the data was gathered for “no clear purpose”, then used to measure productivity and fed into a culture of competition among senior ranks to improve their job prospects. The association blamed highranking members of management for requesting the data to boost their promotion chances. In a statement, the GRA said: “No one can categorically say it was our members falsifying data.” It added “a number of supervisors and managers” have input into the system and continued: “It is clear in the report that Garda management do not wish to be blamed for this debacle – but it is entirely of their own making. “Their obsession with data collection, for no clear and distinct purpose, while our members were issued with endless directives at a time of under-resourcing, no training, increased workloads and an unclear system of collation, was a policy of failure. “Our members will not be scapegoated for illconsidered policies – and this should be the focus of political attention. “If the people of Ireland have been let down, then it is in the management and deployment of scant resources to appease the need for purposeless data by those in power. “If the people of Ireland have been let down, then it is in the management and deployment of scant resources to appease the need for purposeless data by those in power.”