When a team of hooded gardaí moved in to keep order at the eviction of Take Back the City activists 3½ years ago in central Dublin there was uproar. Men wearing balaclavas – acting on behalf of the landlord and armed with a court order – went into the building on North Frederick Street and ordered the protesters out.
A crowd sympathetic to the property crisis protesters gathered outside and when gardaí dressed in public order gear – and wearing masks or hoods – moved in, ugly clashes broke out. Five people were arrested, some of the gardaí were verbally and physically assaulted, and an angry crowd gathered outside Store Street Garda station in protest.
The aftermath of the incident offers an interesting insight into policing in the Republic in this period of Garda reform. Garda members say it illustrates the pressures they are under in a time of “flat” or “poor” morale.
Video and photos of the gardaí on duty were captured at the scene and went viral on social media. Some of the gardaí were named in tweets and subjected to abuse online.
Garda Commissioner Drew Harris, just days after being appointed, said the use of the hoods by gardaí at the scene on the day was "incorrect" and complaints were made to the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (Gsoc). The head of the Policing Authority at the time, Josephine Feehily, said the images of gardaí wearing hoods "didn't inspire confidence".
The Policing Authority asked the Garda Inspectorate to review the events and compile a report. Another, “lessons learned”, review was carried out within the Garda and a report drawn up. Both of those reviews involved interviews with some Garda members present on the day. Those gardaí also filled out “use of force” reports for Garda records and contributed to the Pulse incident report on the Garda’s internal crime database. Senior Garda management were questioned about the day’s events at a public meeting of the Policing Authority and the matter was debated in the Dáil.
Accountability gone mad
For some, the protracted fallout for months was a perfect illustration of how policing accountability should work. For many Garda members, it was an example of accountability gone mad, which is undermining policing and will, they say, damage the force’s relationship with the public if left unchecked.
As medals are being minted for serving and retired Garda members to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of the founding of the force, many gardaí report poor morale. They say though while the force was praised by the Policing Authority for the manner it connected with, and supported, the public during the pandemic, the job is “not the same as it used to be”.
Many Garda members who spoke to The Irish Times said while they still enjoyed the job, they would be hesitant to recommend a career in policing to younger people. They say they are glad they are not starting their careers now. Others said they would retire immediately when they are eligible – 30 years on a full pension – though they previously planned to remain on in the force until compulsory retirement age.
“The core job is not about catching the criminal anymore,” said one serving Garda member. “The important thing is to tick all the boxes and to be seen to have done everything you could do. Being seen to be doing the job now comes before doing the job.”
However, one senior officer said An Garda Síochána had been dogged by controversy for much of the last 20 years, adding the Government had established the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland to formulate a reform programme to avoid past mistakes and to modernise policing.
“From the Morris tribunal up to the [Maurice] McCabe whistleblower saga, we have had an awful lot of problems,” he said. “If you are going to bring in changes to avoid a repeat of that, then it is going to be hard and some people are going to feel like their world is changing. Ireland has changed hugely in the last 30 years or so and now we are playing catch up. But that has to be done.”
Some Garda members point to Harris, who spent more than three decades in the PSNI, as ushering in UK-style constabulary policing with too much record-keeping. They believe the need to create records arising from everything they do on duty means their ability to exercise discretion in their dealings with the public is rapidly diminishing.
One Garda sergeant said: “You will end up with the kind of police forces they have in the UK, the US; carrying out their jobs to the letter of a rule book, more like an army than police. We’ve always had common sense and discretion here. And that’s the style of policing that works here. Even in the North, which is obviously Harris’s culture, the interactions [between the police and members of the public] are much more formal and the relationship between the PSNI and the public is nowhere near as good. And that’s the way we are going here. It won’t suit us.”
Another Garda source agrees, but he does not believe Harris is responsible. He says the process of bringing layers of formality into day-to-day policing had long begun before the former PSNI deputy chief constable in September 2018 became the first “outsider” in the modern era to lead the Garda. But he believes the increase in the number of investigations under Harris is notable.
“Suspensions are now far higher than before. There’s a sense there’s a deliberate effort to be punitive. You wonder has he done that to lay down a marker and then it will settle down? Or is this only getting started?”
Frontline policing
Other Garda members who joined the force between 15 and 30 years ago believed the job of frontline policing in the Republic had changed at a faster rate during their careers than at any time in the history of the force. They said heightened supervision and oversight was now “priced into the job” in that Garda members were aware of it and used to it and “very few of us have anything to fear from it because we’re doing nothing wrong in our jobs anyway”.
However, one of the sources said the cumulative effect of all the changes to date and plans to further invest in and strengthen internal discipline seemed overwhelming to many in the force, especially as layers of oversight and investigation were already in place, particularly Gsoc.
“You have more investigations into members now, more people suspended than ever and the people that investigate us are going to get stronger powers,” he said of the changes planned under the Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill. “Then we have the new Anti-Corruption Bureau and the plans for random drug testing and ongoing vetting for promotions. There’s a volume of new things coming towards us and it all seems to assume we are up to no good.”
At present there are 95 members of An Garda Síochána suspended from duty pending the outcome of investigations into them compared with 32 members suspended when Harris took over as commissioner 3½ years ago.
Damien McCarthy, a Garda Representative Association member who represents rank-and-file gardaí in south Dublin, said the amount of "attention, resources, political commentary" and positions within the Garda and in external agencies taken up by policing accountability was "difficult to comprehend".
There was a sense of “fatigue” in the Garda from hearing so often and in such detail “about how we are doing things wrong”, adding that narrative “seems to have taken over” in recent years.
“The latest round of it was Garda Commissioner Drew Harris getting the two-year extension in the last few days and the commentary was about how much [reforming] work he still had to do in the job,” McCarthy said. “What I would say is that he has a lot to do in terms of getting the resources for us, me and my colleagues, so we can get on with the job.”
On the recent controversy around the cancellation of 999 calls, he believed the nature of what happened was misunderstood by the public, yet Harris had already apologised on behalf of the Garda.
While it had been suggested thousands of calls were cancelled or went unanswered, this was not the case. McCarthy added all calls were answered and a policing response was provided in the vast majority of cases. He added there was a range of legitimate reasons why some calls were being cancelled. But he insisted a false and damaging impression had won out suggesting gardaí decided to ignore victims in distress or danger. He believed very significant resources had been expended on the controversy by the Garda and Policing Authority at a time when policing challenges, and serious shortfalls in resources, did not get the same attention.
He cited the example of long delays gardaí carrying out investigations now faced when they need laptops, phones and other devices analysed for incriminating evidence, including sexual offences with child victims.
McCarthy believes some of the oversight focus needs to switch to putting pressure on to better resourcing gardaí to help more victims. This was especially pressing now as so much crime – from sexual abuse images to bank fraud – was being conducted online.
“There’s not a word about it,” he said. “It’s absolutely frustrating and mind-boggling why everyone is not shouting from the rooftops about this.”
Other Garda members said while the Garda budget was bigger than ever, and the numbers in the Garda would reach an all-time high within the next year – at more than 14,500 sworn members – there were personnel shortages in frontline policing. They said many of the new sections of the Garda – from regional armed response units to the Divisional Protective Services Bureaus that investigate sexual crimes, among others – are “hoovering up resources” away from the regular uniform policing units that make up the policing front line on the streets.
“One thing I have noticed is that the uniform sergeant on a regular unit is not getting promoted anymore,” said one very experienced Garda member. “It was always the case that the uniform sergeant, especially in a really busy district, would do the job for a number of years and then get promoted to inspector. But now if you want promotion you have to have courses done and that’s what is being rewarded rather than performance in the job and experience. And they are getting those promotions quickly; people in their early 30s already superintendents.”
Another source said the focus being placed on academic achievement would “come back and bite” An Garda Síochána. He said some Garda members were completing third-level courses – part funded and facilitated by the Garda – and were then leaving for the private sector when they gained their new qualifications.
Resignations
"We have guys going to Facebook, Twitter. They get cyber training in the [Garda] and then they are gone. There is also an awful lot of young people going. These are people with less than five years' service having a good look at the job and saying, 'This is not for me, I'm off'. A lot of them went to college before the guards and they just feel their skills are not appreciated, not being used [in the Garda] and so they leave. I think in the future we are going to see an awful lot more of that."
The number of resignations from the Garda, which had 14,235 sworn members at the start of this year, is relatively small, though is increasing. Some 41 members resigned in 2017, increasing to 70 in 2020 and rising further, to 94, last year.
Another source believed the ramping up of internal discipline combined with the better educated and skilled workforce in the Garda was changing the nature of Irish policing.
“You’re looking at a less-friendly workplace, people watching their backs,” he said. “Then you have a lot of jobs available in the private sector, [Garda] members being headhunted for them. So I think very soon we are going to get into things like people being recruited from outside straight into inspector rank as a way of getting and keeping skills. And I think we’ll have people being recruited on contracts; a 10-year contract, things like that. Policing will be something people do for only part of their working life. That’s how it is in the UK, the US. That’s the way we are going, it will be very different for Ireland.”
In reply to queries from The Irish Times, Garda Headquarters said Harris believed, if the force was to maintain the high levels of public trust it enjoys, “all Garda personnel must operate to the highest of standards”.
It added that a cultural audit of Garda members would begin on Monday and would be carried out by Durham University, which had conducted similar audits for UK police forces. When the last Garda audit was conducted in 2018, a number of issues were raised by members and these had since been acted on.
These measures included: the new Garda uniform launched last week; more transparent promotions, now run by the Public Appointments Service; a mental health and wellness app; enhanced internal communications within the force; the rollout of hand-held devices and laptops to reduce paperwork; and give gardaí access to databases while on the front line.
The Garda added the fleet of vehicles available was larger than ever while there were 1,000 more gardaí now than 10 years ago. A recruitment competition was under way to hire 800 more gardaí this year.
Furthermore, Garda members could use the new “Have Your Say” initiative, which allowed them to give feedback on any part of their work.
