Gardaí to test their own powers of investigation
THE initial impression after a trademark performance on Monday was that the Garda commissioner might have done, just about, enough to save her skin.
It wasn’t because Nóirín O’Sullivan adequately explained the burning issue — how come almost half of the 2m breath tests which never actually happened were recorded by gardaí on Pulse. She hadn’t.
She did, however, say that “if” deliberate falsification was uncovered in an internal investigation, action would be taken. She said accountability goes all the way from “top to bottom and back again”.
She gave a timeline for the report of this investigation — three months.
This seemed to give her a lifeline, albeit a temporary one.
Fianna Fáil pulled back on possible support to a Sinn Féin motion of no confidence in her — which, while having no legal power, has obvious political weight.
But, as of yesterday, her situation seemed less uncertain. Fianna Fáil were still not going to support the motion but continued to express no confidence in her. They were not happy with her explanations and continued to ask her to consider her position.
The Taoiseach continued to express confidence in her, but the stability of that position is looking less than solid.
Much may now turn on her requested appearance before the Oireachtas justice committee tomorrow.
So what needs to be ironed out?
Who knew what, and when?
According to Garda documentation provided at Monday’s briefing, gardaí first became of aware of concerns regarding the operation of breath testing on April 11, 2014, when the transport minister wrote to the then acting commissioner, Nóirín O’Sullivan.
This followed an anonymous correspondence regarding the issue sent to the Road Safety Authority.
This resulted in internal inquiries conducted in the Western Region.
On May 12, 2014, gardaí sent a “comprehensive report” on the issue referred to them by the transport minister to the Department of Justice.
Separately, the Medical Bureau of Road Safety (MRBS), which supplies and tests the breath test devices to gardaí, noted that the numbers of breath tests being recorded (some 400,000-450,000 over a two-year period) did not correspond with the number of mouthpieces being used.
Denis Cusack said they wrote to the gardaí around July 2014 informing them that the numbers did not add up.
“It was an alert that something wasn’t adding up,” Prof Casey told Morning Ireland yesterday.
The Garda document said they received this letter on August 22, 2014, but said it merely referred to the “purchasing of consumables for the Drager [breath-testing] devices”.
Prof Cusack said they got a reply some months later saying no more mouthpieces were needed, but no other response.
On March 7, 2015, gardaí issued “an instruction” to all divisional and district officers to ensure mechanisms were in place to monitor breath-testing checkpoints.
On July 20, 2015, gardaí set up a working group to examine the “recording of equipment and data” on Pulse regarding road-related matters.
Following continuing concerns, the MBRS conducted a survey in August 2015 of 200 of the 1,200 Drager devices and found that while 400,000-plus breath tests were recorded by gardaí, closer to 200,000 were recorded on the devices.
In August-September 2015, the MBRS met staff from the Garda Traffic Bureau, headed at the time by now deputy commissioner John Twomey, and told them of their results.
“In fairness to the gardaí they reacted and said they were going to carry out an audit,” said Prof Cusack.
On November 11, 2015, a report of a Garda audit in the Southern Region uncovered a 17% discrepancy between the number of breath tests recorded on Pulse and those recorded on the devices.
It wasn’t until June 2, 2016, that a national audit was ordered. On June 8, a report was sent to the Department of Justice and the Road Safety Authority was informed verbally.
Crucially, the Policing Authority, formally up and running since January 2016, was not informed or sent a report.
At Monday’s meeting, DC Twomey said this was an “administrative” oversight on his part.
On March 8, 2017, gardaí sought data from the MBRS, which they received two days later.
On March 21, gardaí briefed the Policing Authority, which had only heard about the issue at all when they read about the audits in the Irish Times the previous February, which they were very unhappy about.
So, it appears the Department of Justice had been kept informed of the issues since May 2014. There appears to be a significant gap between November 2015 and June 2016 regarding the setting up of a national audit.
There are remaining concerns over why the Policing Authority was not informed by gardaí.
There are also questions over what was done to correct the breath test issues, although according to the Garda’s timeline they issued an instruction on March 7, 2015, to all local and regional senior officers to ensure mechanisms were in place to “monitor the operation of MAT [mandatory alcohol test] checkpoints”.
Why the phantom tests?
From the commissioner down, the garda bosses are keeping the line that they do not know why the phantom 937,000 breath tests were recorded on Pulse.
This is despite the fact that they have been investigating this issue one way or another since April 2014; issued a direction in March 2015; set up a working group in July 2015; and had the results of their Southern Region audit since November 2015.
When the country’s top traffic officers held the initial briefing last Thursday, they could not provide any reasons why there was such an exaggerated figure.
The commissioner kept that line on Monday, saying only the internal fact-finding investigation could establish it.
She said that “if” there was deliberate falsification it would be dealt it — but stressed that at the moment they did not know that if that was the case.
Senior gardaí have said there could be recording issues.
Some Garda sources told the Irish Examiner that gardaí were making the breath tests up — and that supervisors and local managers did not check if the returns the gardaí were giving were accurate.
They also said there was general pressure from “above” to keep figures up, at a time when traffic corps numbers were being decimated.
Ms O’Sullivan said that there were “potentially very serious ethical issues” involved and added that the “integrity of each individual member of An Garda Síochána is on the line”.
She insisted that the internal investigation is not a way “to kick the can down the road” and would “get to the bottom” of it.
Will the investigation uncover truth?
Internal Garda investigations do not have a good rep. That much is clear from past experience. So will this one be any different?
Things are different now in that we have a Policing Authority which is, gradually, showing itself as having some teeth in its questioning and will, no doubt, be probing the investigation report.
A key question for any investigation is what, if any, pressure, expectation or blind eye was turned by supervisors and managers at all levels to accuracy and false reporting.
There are also question marks over how far the O’Sullivan report will be able to go.
The Garda document given on Monday did break down the overall figures by region.
The South Eastern Region had the greatest exaggerated number of false breath tests (153% above the actual number), followed by Northern (+103%), Eastern (+91%), then the Western (88%), the Southern (+69%) and the DMR (+68%).
But will Michael O’Sullivan and his team be able to drill down further.
When asked last Thursday was it possible to identify who used which breath testing device, and when, assistant commissioner Mick Finn said the “short answer is no”.
He said the devices were “shared between multiple users” and that paper records as to who did what checkpoint going back to 2011 “didn’t exist” and that the device number would not have been recorded.
Monday’s briefing document said there was “no correlation” between the breath test returns entered on Pulse and the paper-based records — records which were “not retained” by the organisation.
Prof Cusack said the devices were “Garda station-specific”.
This would appear to indicate that the investigation may only to drill as far down as to station level and give a general picture. Will that be sufficient to quell public anger?
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