The killers of Det Garda Jerry McCabe enjoy such a relaxed regime in Castlerea prison, Co Roscommon, that they are "kings in their own little compound", Garda Representative Association (GRA) president Dermot O'Donnell has said.
Addressing Minister for Justice Michael McDowell at the association's annual conference in Tralee, Co Kerry, Mr O'Donnell said the Government could and should bring an end to the special privileges given to the gang who killed Det Garda McCabe and wounded his partner, Det Garda Ben O'Sullivan, during a botched robbery in Adare, Co Limerick, in 1996.
The GRA, along with Det McCabe's widow, Ann, felt it was "ploughing a lonely furrow" in campaigning to keep the killers in jail, particularly when Mr McDowell had not given his backing to this campaign.
"Garda killers are garda killers and belong locked up and not free to roam like kings in their own little compound, let alone back on the streets of this country," Mr O'Donnell said.
While he accepted that Mr McDowell had inherited the situation surrounding the killers getting special privileges, this did not preclude him from ending it.
The Minister for Health, Ms Harney, had similarly inherited a "less than satisfactory" system when she assumed the health portfolio, but she had already acted to try and bring improvements. "We would hope that you would follow her lead and ask no special arrangements be allowed to Garda killers in any prison," Mr O'Donnell said.
He was also highly critical of the way rank-and-file gardaí were treated over the 2002 May Day disturbances.
Members of garda rank had been forced to carry the burden for those events alone. Some had been brought before the courts, yet the events were in large part due to the failure of management to implement proper planning for the event.
A report on Garda management's handling of the day had been compiled but had not been published, and a copy of it had not even been furnished to the GRA. This was unacceptable.
Mr O'Donnell also told delegates that bullying was now a very serious issue within the force. Dr Michael Corry, a consultant psychiatrist at the Institute of Psychosocial Medicine, Dublin, who has worked with the Garda for the last 20 years, had written to the association stating that bullying had become one of the greatest sources of stress now facing gardaí.
Dr Corry had said it was "saddening to sit in front of fine men and women who have had their will and spirit systematically broken down by serial predatorial bullies."