Is there an adult in the room when it comes to policing?
THE most risible defence of Garda Commissioner Drew Harris and Justice Minister Helen McEntee following the Dublin riots came from the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar himself. He reckoned: Sure, if they get the bullet it’ll only encourage and embolden those behind the violence. That’s the dismal level of brain power being brought to bear in the aftermath of a humiliating failure of government and policing that prepared the ground for what occurred in the centre of Dublin on November 23. Such profound and irrefutable evidence of delusion at the very top of Government is frankly shocking enough to make one wonder if there is any adult at all left in the room.
Quite obviously, this Government has for some time now been operating on the basis of a completely false belief about security on our streets. Either that or they’re all bare-faced liars.
In July, following a vicious attack on 57year-old American tourist Stephen Termini at the corner of Store Street and Talbot Street in Dublin city centre, Helen McEntee said Dublin was safe overall (whatever that meant). We all knew it wasn’t, but she said it anyway.
SHE insisted there’ll always be problems and it was her intention to meet those problems ‘head on’. How’d that work out for you, Helen? Two months earlier, acting Justice Minister Simon Harris told us how he’d been assured by Commissioner Harris (his namesake but no relation) that there was ‘operational integrity’ in the police force and – wait for it – that the gardaí had sufficient resources and were capable of responding and tackling incidents such as the burning of tents used by asylum seekers and the escalation in antimigrant protests. More bunkum.
In fairness, the Taoiseach admitted at the time that he was worried about rising anti-refugee criminality and feared further attacks in the future. But that’s all, folks. They all just went back to sitting on their hands.
There appear to have been no urgent meetings of anybody, least of all the Government’s security committee, to fast-track Garda recruitment or the deployment of boots on the ground in stressed inner cities and large towns throughout Ireland, where regular people have sensed a growing and menacing threat for some time.
The crisis in confidence and low morale within the gardaí – caused by under-resourcing, insufficient staffing, and a perceived regime of paper-pushing and strict accountability rather than street policing – was allowed to fester. Even the Kim Jong-un-style 99% no-confidence vote in Drew Harris by rankand-file gardaí was fobbed off as ‘nothing to see here’.
And public order training and preparation were at best neglected or at worst, set to one side entirely, the cover for such failure blown by the horror show we all witnessed on November 23.
And now, what was previously being shamelessly denied is conceded.
The law to allow gardaí use bodyworn cameras and provide for greater access to CCTV and community CCTV is now through the Dáil. This means bodycams for frontline gardaí from next spring. Meanwhile, in a volte-face, Commissioner Harris has abandoned his absurd ‘sufficient resources’ posture and is now accelerating the expansion of the dog unit for public order policing. Even more seriously, gardaí are to get strong pepper ‘incapacitating’ spray and public order units will have taser guns to allow the administration of immediate shock therapy to bad guys. (Think Four Courts personal injuries actions.)
Top all that up with water cannon, hand-held cameras, more and better public order vehicles and gear, more data scientists to sort through evidence for prosecutions and, of course, more gardaí – precisely the resources that would have either prevented or minimised the thuggery that erupted in Dublin.
None of that qualifies, however, as timely action. It’s all been too late, dragged out of them by terrible events which they were under notice would happen.
VARADKAR’S absurd excuse for refusing to sack either Helen McEntee or Drew Harris matches the preposterous stationing of fully geared-up public order gardaí, batons on their hips and ready for action, on Grafton Street this week as entirely peaceful shoppers dashed into Lego, Clarke’s, Brown Thomas and elsewhere to buy Christmas cheer.
I presume those gardaí were well aware that all that rioting had occurred on the other side of the River Liffey a week before, and that their heavy and unnecessary presence amounted only to a stark reminder of what a mess McEntee and Harris have made of securing public order on our streets.