Garda culture raises its head once again

ANOTHER fine mess. The latest revelations around An Garda Síochána raise fundamental questions around the management of the force. More than 14,500 people who were prosecuted for road traffic offences will now have their convictions quashed because of an error.

The motorists convicted in the courts were prosecuted without a fixed-charge notice first being issued.

Gardaí now have to appeal all those convictions, have those court-imposed penalties removed and the State has to cover all costs, estimated to run into millions of euro.

And from 2011 to 2016, the number of drink-driving tests gardaí claimed to have carried out was hugely exaggerated, by the best part of a million. The Policing Authority was scathing in its criticism. The authority said it was alarmed at the scale of the discrepancies disclosed between actual roadside alcohol tests administered and the numbers recorded by gardaí.

In a damning statement following a public acknowledgement by Garda management of the problem, the authority said: “This is not just an academic statistical matter, it is an ethical one.”

“It raises serious questions of integrity for An Garda Síochána organisation and, combined with previous issues regarding inflated activity levels, erodes confidence in the credibility of Garda data generally,” the authority said.

“The scale of the discrepancy is further evidence of deep cultural problems within the Garda service – a culture in which such behaviour was possible.”

Once again, the culture in the Garda is raised and there is no confidence of any change coming about without major changes at the top level.