Hard fight in the ring ahead for Garda Commissioner
It started with the O’Higgins report, exploded with the revelations about her instructions regarding Sergeant Maurice McCabe to her lawyers, before taking an unexpected turn with the stinging attack from the Policing Authority.
Asked whether her, and the force’s, reputation on the line — not least with the first of two public meetings with the Policing Authority next Monday — she said: “If I was to be honest about this... what did the last couple of weeks do for me?
“It allowed me to challenge my own assumptions, about myself and about my leadership of the organisation.”
Not the words of someone on the ropes, certainly, but a rare acknowledgement that the events had made her take stock.
The commissioner was speaking at a high-profile launch of the Garda modernisation and renewal programme 2006-2021.
The report and speeches were peppered with management-speak we have become used to — words such as ‘historic’, ‘sea change’, ‘quantum shift’, ‘stakeholders’, ‘end user’ and so on.
But it would be churlish not to give the commissioner and her team the opportunity to do what they say they are going to do.
The force has haemorrhaged so much blood in terms of numbers and budgets and has been battered so much by crises and controversies that it is struggling to find its feet again.
The proof will be in the pudding. Will the plan be implemented? Are the staffing numbers there to do that? Will the resources promised by the State be provided?
The commissioner said there was no doubt the force had “taken a hit” for having an insular and defensive culture, resistant to change.
At the end of the five-year plan, she said, the force will mark its 100th anniversary. What was important was the “legacy” they left behind.
That is the challenge for her and the organisation, but she said she was “up for” it.
It could be a long and bruising fight ahead.
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