Garda chief FINALLY bows to pressure and issues a
GARDA Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan has said revelations over traffic prosecutions and breath test discrepancies are ‘totally unacceptable’.
She added that further examples of bad practice were ‘inevitable’ during a period of ‘radical reform’ under her commissionership.
Fianna Fáil’s justice spokesman Jim O’Callaghan has described her statement as inadequate. He said explanations were needed, not more reviews.
The Garda Commissioner made the lengthy statement last night after coming under pressure to do so from the Taoiseach.
Mr Kenny said: ‘I would like the commissioner to be very clear in her statement that she makes. It’s not acceptable.
‘I’ve already expressed confidence in the Garda Commissioner a number of times. I would like to see her statement this afternoon. I continue to have confidence in her.’
Ms O’Sullivan made the statement following the revelation that 14,700 people who were prosecuted for road traffic offences are to have their convictions quashed because of Garda error.
In addition to this, the number of drink-driving tests carried out between 2011 and 2016 was exaggerated by almost one million.
In her statement, Ms O’Sullivan pledged further investigations into both matters and said corrective action had been taken.
‘We’re looking at a problem that goes back more than a decade,’ she said. ‘This is an issue, as the Policing Authority has pointed out, which is more than systemic. It’s about ethics. It’s about supervision. It’s about measurement. Most of all, it’s about trust.
‘What we’ve found thus far is totally unacceptable and not in keeping with the standards of a modern police service.’
She said the Policing Authority and Garda management were in agreement ‘that this is a matter of individual and collective ethical behaviour and not one of occasional systems failure’.
She added: ‘It is a matter of grave disappointment that this has apparently been happening for so long, unchallenged. Every single member of the organisation must recognise that their individual actions, in all areas of policing, reflect on the organisation as a whole and impact on the trust between ourselves and the communities we serve.’
‘Most of all, it’s about trust’