Garda ‘left open to repeating’ Abbeylara

THE Garda Síochána is leaving itself “open to repeating” the Abbeylara tragedy by not having formal mental health expertise available to it to deal with barricade incidents.

An armed man, John Carthy, who suffered from manic depression, was shot dead by gardaí during a siege at Abbeylara, Co Longford, in April 2000.

A report by the Garda Inspectorate on Wednesday found that key, and urgent, recommendations it made in a February 2007 report, based on the Barr Tribunal into Abbeylara, had still not been implemented, despite a deadline of June 2008.

The inspectorate urged the gardaí and the HSE to implement the recommendations “without further delay”. The three recommendations concern the formal provision of mental health professionals to gardaí to deal with such incidents.

The report said gardaí continue to rely on an informal system and that discussions were ongoing.

Disagreement between the Garda and the HSE over who would fund the system is thought to be a key stumbling block.

The three recommendations were the only ones out of 84 recommendations which hadn’t been either fully or partially implemented.

John Saunders of Shine (formerly Schizophrenia Ireland), congratulated the Garda for fully implementing 74 recommendations and partially implementing seven more.

However, he said the three recommendations outstanding went to the heart of the issues raised by the Barr Tribunal.

“The outstanding ones are obviously very significant, given the particular context where those recommendations came from: a specific incident where gardaí were called to a scene involving a man with mental health problems. So these three issues are very relevant.”

Mr Saunders said a Mental Health Commission and Garda working group made similar recommendations in a 2009 report.

It also called for concentrated mental health training for both student and full-time gardaí.

Mr Saunders said: “The situation is leaving gardaí open to repeat events such as John Carthy’s death. They still don’t have mental health training for recruits or existing gardaí, or the availability of mental health professionals. They are leaving themselves vulnerable to Carthy being repeated. Hopefully, it won’t.”

A senior Garda source pointed out that they do have access, on an informal basis, to mental health experts if situations arise.

Mr Saunders accepted there were gardaí with “huge experience” at operational level in Garda stations. But he said there was no formal training and that experience takes time to build up.

He felt the issue may not be high enough up on the Garda priority list, particularly in times of restricted budgets.

A spokesman for the Garda Press Office said: “An Garda Síochána is committed to implementing recommendations subject to budgetary constraints and the moratorium on recruitment.”

The Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors called for the three recommendations to be implemented “as soon as possible”, saying the expertise of mental health professionals was “vital” in such situations.