Commissioners have been dismissed before
NED Garvey was Garda Commissioner from 1975 to 1978. He was responsible for the establishment of the ‘Heavy Gang’ – a group of gardaí known for their savage beatings during interrogations to obtain forced confessions. In March 1976, four members of the Irish Republican Socialist Party were arrested following the robbery at Sallins, Co. Kildare, of £200,000 from the Cork to Dublin mail train. After their initial release due to lack of a book of evidence, they were subsequently rearrested and interrogated. During their interrogations they were severely beaten and signed forced confessions. These confessions were the only evidence against the men, who were convicted in front of a non-jury Special Criminal Court. The Provisional IRA claimed responsibility for the Sallins robbery several years later.
In 1977, Amnesty International reported evidence of garda brutality by the Heavy Gang. The report looked at 28 cases involving such allegations.
The allegations led to Commissioner Garvey being sacked by the then government. He took a case to the Supreme Court and won (although he didn’t get his job back).
This led to the standard that a government would have to give cause for a commissioner’s sacking, and allow any response to that cause.
Patrick McLaughlin succeeded Ned Garvey in 1978. He was Commissioner in 1982 at the time when two journalists – Geraldine Kennedy and Bruce Arnold – had their phones tapped by gardaí on the instruction of then Fianna Fáil Justice Minister Seán Doherty.
In the same year, a Garda manhunt led to the arrest of double murderer Malcom MacArthur at the home of the then attorney general.
It was during this period that the term GUBU – Grotesque, Unbelievable, Bizarre, Unprecedented – was coined.
Mr McLaughlin resigned from the force following the phonetapping scandal, having been a garda for 40 years.
This occurred after the then justice minister, Michael Noonan, wrote to him to express the government’s concern over the force’s involvement in the politically motivated tapping against journalists and bugging of some TDs.
Savage beatings in interrogations