It’s Nóirín’s promotion, not Máire’s, that could be the undoing of Leo’s new Government

FROM whistleblowers to a myriad of bank accounts in its training college in Templemore, from a million inflated breath tests to the perennial appearances of the embattled Commissioner at the Public Accounts Committee, an appalling vista of incompetence and mismanagement hangs over An Garda Síochána. When such managerial ineptitude is combined with the allegations of corruption of one form or another which are at the heart of the various whistleblower allegations, then the stakes for the future of the force in its current form and under its present leadership are very serious indeed.

The last few years have seen no less than 18 inquiries of one sort or another into Garda-related issues. This culminated in the establishment last February of the Disclosures Tribunal into the Garda whistleblowing scandal.

Of the 10 tribunals of inquiry established in this State over the past quarter of a century, four have been to do with An Garda Síochána: the Barr Tribunal into the shooting of John Carthy in Abbeylara, Co Longford, on April 20, 2000; the Morris Tribunal into certain gardaí in the Donegal division; the Smithwick Tribunal into suggestions that members of the Garda or other employees of the State colluded in the fatal shooting of RUC members in 1989; and the current Disclosures Tribunal.

This should remind us that problems with An Garda Síochána are not a recent phenomenon. Allegations of corruption, collusion, incompetence, brutality and political interference in its running have been common themes throughout the force’s history.

What is a recent phenomenon, however, is the disrepair the relationship between the Garda and our public representatives has fallen into, judging by the haranguing of Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan at the Public Accounts Committee since her appointment.

Given the ongoing scandals involving gardaí, it is rather extraordinary, in many ways, that the force still retains high levels of public confidence.

Last week a survey commissioned by the force itself and conducted by Amárach Research suggested that a whopping 90% of people had mid to high levels of trust in Garda officers. Yet last April in a survey by the same company for RTÉ’s Claire Byrne Live programme, just 43% said they had confidence in members of An Garda Síochána.

The Government itself is of the view that public confidence in the gardaí has been shattered. In May, impatient with the pace of reform in the force, the Government appointed a Commission on the Future of Policing.

IN ANNOUNCING the Commission’s membership and terms of reference, the then justice minister Frances Fitzgerald stated that it was very exciting and the right time to do it given the endemic issues of culture, ethos and management which had pervaded the force. Yet the last government bears responsibility for appointing O’Sullivan to the top job when it could have made a clean break and plumped for a candidate outside of the organisation.

Also, the still-unexplained departure of the last commissioner, Martin Callinan, would hardly inspire confidence in terms of the relationship between the Government and its police force.

Having the confidence of citizens is essential for gardaí to be able to do their job. Still a largely unarmed force, it needs the support of the ordinary men and women of this State to do its work.

At its heart, it is there to protect the public. But it also wields extraordinary power in its position as the agent of the State charged with depriving people of their liberty through its powers of arrest and seizure. If the force loses the confidence of the public then the question has to be asked: what will the Government do to get that confidence back?

This is where the question of the leadership of An Garda Síochána is crucial. Last January, in her first appearance before the Policing Authority, Commissioner O’Sullivan was pressed to account for the force’s failure to implement literally hundreds of recommendations set out in no less than 11 Garda Inspectorate reports over the previous decade.

O’Sullivan, who has a formidable public presence and seems like the kind of woman you would want in the trenches with you when preparing for battle, pointed to the fact that the 13-point reform plan she published in 2016 was strong and stark evidence that under her watch the Garda was serious about reform.

Yet in her latest marathon sevenhour appearance at the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee last Tuesday, the contempt and scorn that some members of the Committee had for the Commissioner was palpable. And given that these members represent the public, that is very worrying for both the Commissioner herself and the force she leads.

While the derision from the left might have been expected, the dramatic charge of ‘hostile witness’ levelled by the Sinn Féin Waterford TD David Cullinane clearly stung the Commissioner, who protested in angry tones that she had never been described as such in her whole career.

WHEN she reflects on her treatment by the committee, O’Sullivan will surely have a wry smile at being described as a hostile witness in Dáil Éireann by a member of a political party that for decades refused to recognise that House as the symbol of parliamentary democracy in Ireland.

The irony also won’t be lost on O’Sullivan as she recalls how many Sinn Féin members, including its candidate for the presidency in 2011, Martin McGuinness, and its leader, the TD for Louth, defended members of the IRA involved in the killing of gardaí who died protecting this State and what it stands for.

Whatever about Sinn Féin, the loss of support for the Commissioner from Fianna Fáil over the past few months hardened on Tuesday when Senator Marc MacSharry suggested that it was very convenient that just the day before, O’Sullivan had referred suspected fraudulent activity on a bank account linked to the Garda College in Templemore to the Garda Ombudsman – thus rendering any questioning of it out of bounds at the committee.

Back in late March, Fianna Fáil said that it was ‘not in a position to express confidence’ in the commissioner, and its leader Micheál Martin said she should consider her position.

In a week when the Government teetered on the brink over the appointment of the former attorney general to the Court of Appeal, it is perhaps another female appointment by a Fine Gael-led government to a position of high responsibility, Nóirín O’Sullivan, who will be hoping that Fianna Fáil won’t pull the plug on this Government any time soon.

In the meantime, she needs to continue to rebuild public trust between her officers and the citizens of this State and between herself and our public representatives.

That is no easy task, but in conjunction with the Policing Authority and the Commission on the Future of Policing it can be done and it needs to be done.

Coming clean on the issues around Templemore, first revealed in this paper in March, would be a good place to start.

The last government bears responsibility for appointing Nóirín O’Sullivan