GARDA CULTURE CHANGE

CHIEF SUPERINTENDENT AIDAN GLACKEN HAS RISEN THROUGH THE RANKS OF AN GARDA SÍOCHÁNA AND IS RETURNING TO HIS ROOTS TO TAKE UP HIS LATEST POST IN HIS NATIVE SLIGO, A PLACE HE CALLS HOME

SO ME higher ranking Ga rd ai might shun the opportunity to sit down face to face with a newspaper editor but Chief Superintendent for the Sligo Leitrim Division Aidan Glacken was happy to chat.

The only subject off limits was that of Maurice McCabe. On the Whistleblower controversy all he was willing to say was that within the Gardai and indeed society as a whole ‘ there is always a place for whistleblowers who need to be protected.’ But he cautioned: “Their allegations need to be examined and tested before people jump to conclusions.”

My first impression of the region’s newest Chief Superintendent is positive. The Sligo native seems both welcoming and affable, as he leaves his tidy mahogany desk, with interestingly enough a printed copy of a recent Irish Independent column on whistleblowers, to sit in seats by the window.

Outside and across the road at Sligo Courthouse, a camera crew is waiting to get a shot of a troubled young Sligo Garda who is to plead guilty to criminal offences. The media interest in a fallen guard never ceases to amaze. And I wonder does Chief Supt Glacken feel that the ‘ bad press’ the force has battled with in recent months is justified.

Or is he ready to defend the boys in blue at every juncture? Like his superiors and perhaps because of his superiors he emulates a party line, that of shock at the recent scandals that have shook An Garda Síochána to its very core.

Last month a report by the Policing Authority into wrongful road traffic convictions and false breath tests found that there could be another 400,000 false breath tests on top of the 1.5m already identified.

Referring to the damning document, Chief Supt Glacken says: “I was shocked by what I read. It’s all out there for everyone to see. The problem was endemic. Everybody right through the organisation has a responsibility for what went wrong. It is wrong ethically. The behaviour around it is wrong. Nobody can condone it.”

From a managerial point of view he rejects claims that recording more breath tests as having taken place helped to progress a career or ‘make a department head look good.’

In fact he goes so far as to say: “It’s not even a figure we should be interested in. If there was a breath test checkpoint in my division, I would want to know how many people tested positive, were they arrested and are those arrests being processed.

“Otherwise it’s like every customer going into penny’s being counted and recorded as well as those shoppers arrested for shoplifting. Why should we be interested in those that were abiding by the law. Why did we even need to record that. It is not even a useful statistic.”

Perhaps better than most senior Gardai Aidan Glacken has a deeper understanding as to why such scandals unfolded. Prior to the move back to his home town of Sligo last month, he was based in Garda HQ in the Phoenix Park, working on a major project to ‘change the force from within.’

He was over the Modernisation and Renewal Programme 2016-2021 which took three

years to compile. The ultimate aim of the project is to modernise and renew the force.

“It is a programme of reform,” says Chief Supt Glacken “which was badly needed.”

He explains that the work brought legacy issues to light identifying bad practices that urgently needed to be updated.

Walking to his cabinet he produces a hard copy of the finished document. The hefty booklet outlines 13 key areas that need to be examined from Garda Culture to Victims of Crime to Technology.

“The programme is available online; the work involved painstakingly going through public attitude surveys, internal reports, about 10 years of Garda communication and identifying more than 100 key projects in 13 areas,” he says.

So what did the team find? “Bad processes create gaps for bad behaviours. A lack of strong accountability and governance systems led to the failures we’ve seen in recent times,” Chief Supt Glacken admits.

He also firmly believes losing experienced personnel to retirement and a lack of recruitment and investment in the force has played a part.

“Lack of investment has come to bear. We’ve had few promotions which does not help. The last decade has been one of deficit, a lack of resources and investment in people and technology, in teaching and training and recruitment, the ripple effect of retirements and not replacing people. Our technology is 30 years behind where it should be.”

So has the project been worthwhile and is the former Summerhill pupil confident his programme of reform will work?

“Part of modernisation is unearthing the issues of the past and when you have legacy issues they will generate headlines,” he says. But Chief Supt Glacken maintains he has made great strives to try and improve the lot of the Gardai and as the programme highlights, change has to come from within.

“Garda personnel at all levels need to be trained and need continuous professional development,” stresses Chief Supt Glacken who strongly welcomes ‘ the idea of increased civilians active in the force.’

The landscape of policing is changing and will continue to change. He believes the modern day police force has to continually adapt to meet the needs of the community it serves. That link to the community which is the very ethos of the Gardai is ‘ the envy of police organisations across the world.’

So says the regional head of police who wants to ‘work hand in hand’ with the community in Sligo both formally and informally.

“From what I have seen in Sligo so far there is a very strong community and voluntary sector both regulatory and non-regulatory. I see the key role of the Gardai as enhancing a quality of life for all the community, protecting people who are the most vulnerable and from all backgrounds.”