Senior Canadian police officer one of two women appointed to key Garda roles
Announcement ends vacancies debacle, writes Tom Brady
THE Government has appointed a senior Canadian police officer to the role of deputy Garda commissioner, continuing a recent trend of placing outside candidates in top positions in the Garda force.
Dr Shawna Coxon has been serving as deputy chief in the Toronto police service since 2017.
Her selection after an open competition run by the Policing Authority was approved by the Cabinet yesterday and she takes up the post here in April.
Also appointed deputy commissioner was Anne Marie McMahon, who had been filling a vacancy in that rank on an interim basis since last March. She will begin her new duties as head of policing and security next month.
The two appointments finally end a debacle that has affected the senior management of the force since the departure of Nóirín O’Sullivan as commissioner in2017.
She was replaced as commissioner by Dónall Ó Cualáin and the subsequent vacancy at deputy rank has not been filled in a full-time capacity since then.
The Policing Authority held a competition for a new deputy in late 2019 but this turned into a fiasco when restrictions on who could apply for the job meant that chief superintendents could throw their names into the ring for the position of commissioner but not of deputy.
Restrictions on age for the competition were also understood to have ruled out several of the existing assistant commissioners.
It became more bizarre that November when the authority rejected all of the candidates, despite some excellent internal applicants, and the job remained vacant.
That decision dealt a big blow to the confidence of the upper ranks of the Garda organisation, and left a key position open at a time when the force was undergoing huge transformation after the controversies of the previous few years.
Garda Commissioner Drew Harris moved to ease the pressure on officers who were ‘doubling up’ in their duties by appointing Ms McMahon as a temporary deputy. She had not been a candidate in the initial competition.
She has been in charge of governance, strategy and performance for the force since then. But she will now move over to ‘the other side of the house’ by taking over policing and security responsibilities from John Twomey, who is retiring early.
He had intended to step down at Christmas but was asked by Mr Harris to stay on in the job for a further two months and continue as the public face of the force in coping with the additional responsibilities imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Following the departure of Ms O’Sullivan, Mr Twomey held the two deputy posts for some time. It was not his first time at ‘doubling up’ as for an 18-month period from the middle of 2014 to the end of 2015, he served as an assistant commissioner in charge of the Dublin region as well as the traffic section while also carrying out the work of a deputy.
Ms McMahon is a highly experienced officer. A native of Co Clare, she joined the force in 1986 and served as a superintendent in Bruff and Roxboro districts in Co Limerick, while she was also chief in charge of community engagement, head of training in the Garda College, and assistant commissioner in the southern region.
She also served with the United Nations mission in Cambodia in 1993.
Ms McMahon has a diploma in business and executive coaching from the Smurfit business school, an MBS in human resource management from the University of Limerick, a BA in police management and a management diploma.
Congratulating her on her appointment, Mr Harris said she brought huge policing experience, competence in difficult senior command roles and drive and determination in delivering change through the Policing Service for the Future reform agenda.
Dr Coxon was one of three deputy chiefs appointed in the Toronto policing service in 2017 as part of an effort to modernise the service.
Earlier this week, it was announced that Dr Coxon and another member of the trio, Barbara McLean, were both leaving the Toronto police.
Dr Coxon has served 24 years with the service, holding senior roles in community engagement, roads policing, organisational transformation, cybercrime, sexual crime, child abuse and intelligence analysis.
She has an honours
BA in psychology from York university, an MA in criminology from the University of Toronto and a PhD in criminal law from Leicester University. She is also a published academic and has lectured internationally.
Welcoming Dr Coxon into the Garda, Mr Harris said she had experience in change management, community policing in a diverse city, and serious crime investigations, including utilising intelligence to its full potential.
Commissioner Mr Harris also paid tribute to Mr Twomey, who was leaving after 38 years’ dedicated service and he thanked him, in particular, for his sterling work in providing “such clear leadership” in policing the Covid-19 crisis.