Barrett’s journey from UCC debates to Garda HR chief
WATCHING the Garda HR chief John Barrett contradict the Garda Commissioner at the PAC and reading his notes in today’s Irish Mail on Sunday, it is hardly surprising to learn that he honed his skills in the Philosophical Debating Society while a student in University College Cork.
He graduated in 1984 with a commerce degree and went on to enjoy considerable success in the private sector.
He has over 30 years of experience working in HR. Mr Barrett worked with a number of organisations before joining the gardaí in 2014, these include the Federated Union of Employers, now IBEC, Applied Materials Corporation in California, Applied Materials in Europe and Millipore Corp.
Along the way, he returned to university to complete a master’s degree in organisational behaviour at the University of London in 2000.
A number of glowing recommendations from previous colleagues are featured on his LinkedIn profile, where he is singled out for his communication skills and his ability to develop excellent working relationships and build teams.
Normally a man in the background, attracting no public attention, he has been thrust into the spotlight this month thanks to his damning testimony at the Public Accounts Committee about An Garda Síochána’s management failures.
He told the committee: ‘I think there is a very clear role for public servants to stand up and call the truth as they find it. That’s all I did, I’m asking for no bouquets.’
It was at the PAC that he contradicted Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan’s version of a meeting they had in July 2015. He has more than 30 years experience in HR matters and has been recommended and praised on Linkedin for his work with the Garda Síochána.
Eugene Banks, a principal officer in the Department of Justice, said: ‘John brings a multi-dimensional approach to his role as Executive Director of Human Resources and People Development in the Garda Síochána.’
For a person who has put in many hours of sleuthing to attempt to get the bottom of issues at Templemore College, it is appropriate that Mr Barrett perhaps appropriately quotes Sherlock Holmes in one of the letters in the dossier.
‘Arthur Conan Doyle’s Hound Of The Baskervilles famously gave detective literature the conundrum of the “dog that did not bark” and we too, in a practical sense, as guardians of the public purse, need to understand how our internal guard dogs did not bark. And most especially how this came to happen over many years. The comment is made in a letter to the head of Garda Audit, Niall Kelly.