Public confidence in Gardaí must be restored

When Kevin Flatley, a married man with a family, and a Garda with 26 years of dedicated service to the people of Ireland, lost his life in carrying out a speed-check in Dublin in May, the news was greeted with universal sadness. The 90th member of An Garda Síochána to be killed in the course of his duty, ironically in helping to save lives, brought the fulsome tributes that we have come to expect – from the President of Ireland , An Taoiseach, the Garda Commissioner, and Garda Associations on what was ‘a dark day for An Garda Síochána’.

A whole range of representatives across the broad spectrum of Irish life added voices of condolence to Garda Flatley’s wife and children in their grief. It was, of course, no more than what was due a public servant who had lost his life in making the roads safer for the Irish public.

Spool on a few months to the latest news from An Garda Síochána. But this time, I’m afraid, the news is not much credit to the Garda. I refer to the Crowe Report, commissioned by Garda Headquarters, that found a substantial number of Gardaí assigned to road policing duties were not doing their jobs, had no interest in doing them and, to cap it all, seemed not to be worried that they were being monitored.

Despite the fact that the survey of Garda Public Attitudes (2022) issued a few weeks ago revealed that 90% of young people trust An Garda Síochána with the figure for the general public of 89%, and with 87% finding Gardaí ‘friendly or helpful’ (with the positive numbers reflected in similar surveys in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021), the Crowe Report was worrying to say the least.

This time, it seems the devil was in the detail as it emerged that, according to the unpublished Crowe report, some Gardaí have shown a casual disregard for roads policing duties. The Garda Commissioner Drew Harris described this as ‘brazen and contemptuous’ and, Elaine Byrne, Chairwoman of the Policing and Community Safety Authority, described some members of the force as showing a ‘blatant’ disregard for their jobs – even while knowing that their actions were being reviewed!

Though the report is as yet unpublished and the outgoing Garda Commissioner Drew Harris has promised to publish it once the names of the Gardaí involved are redacted, it throws some light on the efforts of some Garda organisations to carry out a constant campaign of practically blaming the Commissioner for (it seems) everything that‘s perceived to be wrong with An Garda Síochána.

It seems now as if that anti-Harris campaign needs to be revisited and placed in the context of the scandal that the Crowe Report has revealed and to what extent the confidence of the public in the Gardaí has been damaged. The inevitable outrage of road safety groups, who in memory of their loved ones killed on the roads, have campaigned selflessly in their grief for so long for road safety now realise that while they were campaigning, Gardaí assigned to road safety were not doing their jobs.

Apparently the Gardaí involved were content to draw their salaries, sitting presumably on their hands in their Garda cars while not arresting those breaking the law and, in the process, snubbing the noses of those whose responsibility it is to monitor those whose duty it is to help save life. It’s galling, outrageous and unacceptable behaviour by (hopefully) a small number of Gardaí who have betrayed public confidence, damaged the reputation of the force and shamed their colleagues and ex-colleagues.

In a world which, to most people now, seems to have lost its way, the palpable decline in standards - across multiple professions among which many of us have to acknowledge our own - is now almost taken for granted as anchors that used to help us negotiate the prevailing currents of the day seem to have slipped their moorings.

Part of the problem, I suspect, is that the decline in standards is a result of how organisations have become infected by a culture of moral indifference that now even emanates from dodgy values of leadership that seep into the very crevices of an organisation.

A current topical example is afforded by the mess in American politics. If in politics, leaders can trumpet lies, break every rule in the book, show no respect for precedence, prudence or even the law itself and swagger around oblivious to the trail of destruction they leave in their wake, then it’s not surprising that lesser mortals lose the sense of the importance of a moral anchor.

When leaders defend what almost everyone accepts is morally indefensible, it can create a culture in which morality becomes whatever the individual imagines it to be. We make it up as we go along. Everyone is always right all the time. Whatever you’re having yourself!

It seems now that because of what has emerged in the Crowe Report – and possibly too as a list of serving Gardaí have been before the courts in recent times for a variety of humiliating reasons – the impression given by Garda representatives was that the dodgy culture was somehow the fault of the Commissioner is unmasked.

Undoing that culture – however widespread it is in An Garda Síochána – will be a considerable challenge to the Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan and the new Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly who takes office in September.

They need to get it right for everyone’s sake, not least An Garda Síochána .