An Garda Siochana: an Analysis of a Police Force Unfit for Purpose

An Garda Siochana: An Analysis of a Police Force unfit for purpose An Garda Síochána An analysis of a police force unfit for purpose Preamble In constitutional democracies, governments must operate within a framework of constitutional rules, which define the powers, structures and functions of governmental institutions and the rights of citizens. However, the framers of the Constitution of Ireland – in operation since December 29 1937 – eschewed any express provision for policing. This left An Garda Síochána vulnerable to the self-serving manipulation and intrigues of governing parties, individual politicians and well-connected national and local elites. An Garda Síochána is directly controlled by, and accountable to, central government. Professor Dermot Walsh, Chair of Law at the University of Limerick, has warned that such “a huge concentration of police power in the hands of central government in the absence of adequate constitutional checks and balances is uncomfortably close to the arrangements associated with a police state.” [1] Professor Walsh’s warning is hugely important, given An Garda Síochána’s “monopoly on the legitimate use of force in civil society”. [2] Police violence can be used to overwhelm and subdue dissent, at the behest of governments. The right to dissent peacefully is a cornerstone of democracy. Civil disobedience and other forms of peaceful protest and dissent, though irksome to governments and ‘The Establishment’, are vital for a healthy society. Mass-dissent is a form of civil activism, an expression of deep- rooted anger in society. The crushing of such dissent suggests authoritarian rule, not democracy. Nevertheless, “the legitimate use of force in civil society” is widely used by police in Western ‘democracies’ to curb dissent, to impose harsh and unpopular – even loathsome – government policies, and to maintain, and magnify, gross inequalities between social classes. Dermot Walsh’s warning – of how some elements of Ireland’s government/ police relationship come “uncomfortably close to the arrangements associated with a police state” – will be addressed throughout this document. A police state is one in which police forces become synonymous with an intolerance towards public dissent, and also synonymous with repression, with criminality and lack of accountability. Such a state is incompatible with democracy. Do we live in a democracy – or in a police state? An Garda Siochana: An Analysis of a Police Force unfit for purpose SHELL HELL “There has to be a strong, cordial relationship between society and its police force”. (Michael McDowell, Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, at 2003 MacGill Summer School). “Once you come into Erris, all law is suspended. Shell takes over the law.” (Pat ‘The Chief’ O’Donnell, fisherman from Erris, County Mayo). [3] The evacuation of British troops, which began in January 1922, and the disbanding of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), followed the attainment of Irish independence. AA new police force was set up – the Civic Guard. Shortly after its formation, Civic Guard recruits mutinied at their Kildare training depot. The Civic Guard’s commissioner, Dáil deputy Michael Staines, and fellow officers, had to flee, “pursued by a threatening mob containing many members of the Civic Guard… they had to run for their lives”, according to one report. [4] Ammunition, revolvers and up to 300 rifles were seized by the mutineers. A siege of the depot ensued. It was an extraordinarily inauspicious start for the infant state’s national police force. Staines soon resigned as commissioner. He was succeeded by General Eoin O’Duffy.. In August 1923, the Civic Guard was renamed An Garda Síochána, with O’Duffy as its first commissioner. A man of excessive ostentation, self-laudation and vanity, he was a mercurial, imperious and publicity-seeking demagogue who, in time, delighted in moving in fascist and Nazi circles. A biographer described how he “rubbed shoulders with Oswald Mosley at the Nazi-sponsored International Action of Nationalisms conference in Zurich. He attended a conference in Montreaux organized by a newly formed Italian organization… which brought together the most important fascist organizations outside Germany”. [5] By then, he had been dismissed as Garda commissioner. In 1932, when the Cumann na nGaedheal government – which had appointed O’Duffy Garda commissioner nine years earlier – lost to the de Valera- led Fianna Fáil in a general election, there were rumours and fears of an O’Duffy-led or promoted coup d’etat. Professor of Modern History Joe Lee noted that Commissioner O’Duffy and Cumann na nGaedheal minister for finance Ernest Blythe “were rumoured to want an army coup.” [6] Conor Brady – author of a fine history of An Garda Síochána – related how “As early as six months before the election O’Duffy had been sounding out senior army officers about the possibility of a joint army-Garda takeover in the event of Fianna Fáil winning the next election.” [7] However, no coup occurred. From its earliest years, Ireland’s post-independence police force was dogged by controversy, and by accusations of impropriety, illegality, ineptitude and indiscipline. After his appointment to the force as assistant commissioner, Eamonn Coogan – father of Tim Pat Coogan – inspected a police station in Corofin, County Clare in early 1923. His report was scathing. “When I arrived at the Station, the Sgt sat glowering at me and refused to call the party to attention… Garda – tried to rise but fell into the fireplace. II asked the Sergeant to account for the state of affairs existing at the Station but he replied An Garda Siochana: An Analysis of a Police Force unfit for purpose in such a manner as would do more justice to the worst cornerboy in the slums of London. I searched the barracks and found that a seizure of poteen (three gallons) made on the previous day had been almost consumed by the Station party. The Barrack servant sat with a baton in her hand, protecting the remainder of it and refused to move… I heard noises coming from the rear of the cells… I found three young ladies there. I took statements from them and they complained that when passing the Barracks they were forcibly taken in by Sgt – and Gardas – and – , for a purpose better imagined than described… I found the Sergeant urinating from the front door into the street and he started to argue with me on the footpath with his person exposed.” [8] When police recruits completed their training, they were dispatched to stations around the country, such as Corofin. One of the earliest recruits was Donegal native Michael Canney, who was sent to Rossport, in the remote Barony of Erris in north-west Mayo. Describing life in the area at that time, he wrote that “the good people of Rossport… required no Gardaí to help regulate their honest lives… The people were law-abiding, affable, friendly and free from crime.” As a consequence, “only a few Gardaí were required to enforce the law in that wide area between Blacksod and Killala” – an area stretching around forty miles from west to east. [9] However, over 80 years after Canney’s arrival in Erris, the law-abiding and peaceful area around Rossport had been transformed into a virtual police mini-state. Rossport lies in the parish of Kilcommon, which has a population of probably no more than two thousand men, women and children. In October 2006, around 200 gardaí – including members of the riot squad – were temporarily posted to police the area, ensuring the highest Garda to local population ratio, by far, of any rural community in the entire country. The force’s objectives were not benign. What ensued was a quite startling erosion of civil liberties, human rights and democracy. Essentially, democracy was suspended in the region. The story of the community’s years of suffering and repression, at the hands of An Garda Síochána, began with the October 1996 announcement of a natural gas discovery 83 kilometres off Mayo’s west coast. Called the Corrib Gas Project, the venture represented the second largest – after Intel – inward investment in Ireland. It was proposed that the gas would be piped ashore from the gas field and then through a 99 kilometre high-pressure land pipeline – via the Gaeltacht area of Rossport – to an inland treatment plant at Bellanaboy. Initially, the discovery was greeted enthusiastically by the vast majority of local residents, who hoped that the region was on the cusp of an economic boom. However, as time passed, a handful of locals began to raise the possibility of an explosion in the onshore section of the pipeline. Later, people became concerned about the health implications of a run-off of aluminium-containing water from the gas treatment plant site at Bellanaboy into Carrowmore Lake, the main source of drinking water for people in the region. Aluminium has been blamed by some as a causal factor in breast cancer and as a neuro-toxin that can cause Alzheimers Disease. The original route proposed for the high-pressure natural gas onshore pipeline passed within 70 metres of two homes, even closer to a local public road, and was a few hundred metres away from Rossport’s two schools, its pub and other residences. Fearful of the dangers posed by the pipeline to the lives and safety of their own families, their friends An Garda Siochana: An Analysis of a Police Force unfit for purpose and neighbours – their community – a few locals began to engage in a campaign of peaceful resistance and hindrance. Civil disobedience. On June 29 2005, five local men – dubbed the Rossport 5 – were committed to prison, for an indefinite period, for contempt of a court order, obtained by the Shell-led gas project consortium. The court order barred protestors from continuing their small-scale non-violent obstruction of Shell personnel, who were ‘trespassing’ on private land, without the owners’ consent.

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