‘Little to gain from probing breath tests’, says top garda
A SENIOR- r a nki ng Garda representative has said that ‘dishonesty’ was an unfortunate word to use in relation to policing, and no member had benefited from the breath test scandal.
Garda Superintendent Noel Cunningham, the President of the Association of Garda Superintendents, said that if the members of the force who falsified the breath tests were identifiable, they should be ‘dealt with’.
However, he added that going ‘down the road of dealing with this right across the board’ could be an ‘extremely expensive’ exercise.
‘And, I’m just not sure what it will arrive at at the very end... what will be derived from it, what value added will come from it,’ he added.
He was speaking in response to the publication this week of an independent report, which determined that there is now possibly more than 1.9million false records in relation to breath tests.
The damning report was published earlier this week after being conducted by inde- pendent auditors Crowe Horwath, and was published alongside commentary by the Policing Authority which stated that gardaí made ‘dishonest returns in respect of mandatory intoxicant tests’.
Yesterday he said he believed that no garda or district had benefited from the scandal, and that ‘nowhere, at no time, would any of us accept wrongdoing by anybody’.
When asked about individual accountability, Supt Cunningham said: ‘I know you refer to the terminology used by the Policing Authority, and I think the honesty issue is an unfortunate terminology.
‘It’s not again reflected in the report, because the report specifically l ooked at this issue.
‘Because with dishonesty, one conjures up the idea that somebody has benefited from this,’ he told RTÉ’s Today With Sean O’Rourke.
‘And the report actually addressed that issue specifi- cally and said that no member of an Garda Síochána who was misrecording these benefited in any way, financially or indeed fed into any promotion prospects for them.
‘Or indeed any district or division which were misrecording these, they didn’t benefit f r om additional resources.’
He went on to say that ‘it wasn’t endemic in the culture to do things wrong.’
He said his organisation welcomed the report and fully agreed that some changes were needed.
Some of the things [ the force] was interested in seeing were ‘what resources, what package, what improvements in our IT system and what training programmes are going to be put in place’ to ensure this situation does not happen again,’ he said.
The Policing Authority- commissioned independent report, which was published on Wednesday, found that t here was an additional 404,700 false records to the 1.5million already identified as being recorded in the scandal.
And, according to the report, rank-and-file members of the force were put under pressure to meet targets.
It also raised concern at how noone in senior management appeared to be puzzled that the total amount of breath tests was increasing at a time when manpower was being cut.
Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan said that Assistant Commissioner Michael Finn was now assessing the report, and that this should be completed by the end of the month.
Comment
‘It would be very costly’
THERE is nothing more important to the survival of a democracy than the rule of law. However, the rule of law requires those who uphold it to serve with utmost probity. It is, therefore, incumbent on those who police our streets that they be above any suspicion of wrongdoing.
The claim that there may yet be another 400,000 falsified breath tests – published on Wednesday in a report by the Policing Authority – suggests yet another serious breach of trust between the gardaí and the Irish people. Even more worrying is the fact that Garda bosses appear to be in denial. Yesterday, Garda Superintendent Noel Cunningham disputed the accuracy of the report, saying that the figure of 400,000 could, at best, ‘be described as a guesstimate’.
Moreover, he also rejected the report’s finding that there was ‘implicit pressure’ on gardaí to perform checkpoints and inflate numbers. This, despite the claims by some gardaí that management would schedule checkpoints knowing they would never be carried out.
Surely, in a moment of crisis, honesty rather than denial is best policy – especially when trust is at stake.
Most alarming of all, however, is that the superintendent appears unconvinced that those culpable should be held to account. Dealing with the culprits would, he said, ‘ be extremely expensive and I’m just unsure what it will arrive at the very end, what will be derived from it, what value added will come from it’.
Hardly what you expect to hear from a Garda superintendent.
The role of An Garda Síochána is to uphold the law. Why, then, are Garda bosses sending signals to their officers that dishonesty is something that can go unpunished, and that those who commit wrongdoing will not be held accountable?
They, above all people, should realise that nobody is above the law, not least those who are paid to defend it.