Senior gardaí angered by fast-track promotions plan

Senior Garda officers today vowed to fight proposals to fast-track promotions through its ranks.

The Garda Inspectorate, set up to oversee reforms of the force, wants to see highly-talented officers quickly pushed towards top posts.

But the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI) said such measures would re-open the doors to claims of a culture of nepotism and favouritism.

Joe Dirwan, AGSI general secretary, said his members would oppose any attempts by Garda management to introduce an accelerated promotion scheme.

“Any such ’cherry-picking’ of persons for fast-track promotions could put us right back to the bad old days when nepotism was rife,” he said.

“There was a huge perception that promotions and appointments were made on a favouritism basis and not on merit.”

Mr Dirwan insisted it took officers years of agitation to get a fair and transparent system of promotion.

The AGSI leader claimed the present system was based on an officer’s ability to do the job and it needed time to show its worth.

Garda Inspectorate chief inspector, Kathleen O’Toole, denied she was dealing with one of her first major clashes with a garda representative group.

“This is not a battle at all,” she said.

“We would agree with AGSI that any promotion scheme needs to be fair and needs to be based entirely on merit,” she said.

“Perhaps once we explain to them what our rationale is they may be more in agreement.”

The former Boston police chief said she would be holding talks with AGSI and other garda representatives to forge a way forward on the proposals in her third report.

“People at this point are naturally reading between the lines and making some assumptions she said.

“I think that happens any time a document of this nature is published. But we agree much more than we disagree and I have great respect for their input and their feedback.”

Ms O’Toole stood over the recommendation to introduce a fast-track scheme insisting it takes too long for good officers to rise through the ranks.

“We are concerned that even now it takes people quite a lengthy time to get to rank of chief superintendent or assistant commissioner,” she said.

“Most of them are in their late 50s or early 60s.

“They are extremely qualified and have great experience but we’re just saying if there are very capable people who, on merit, deserve to come through the ranks in an accelerated manner then we should at least take a look at that and see if there are options to accommodate that.”

Mr Dirwan also raised concerns about proposals to hand down more power to garda regions.

“The national model has worked well, by and large, and we should be mindful of the experiment with regional health boards which was not a happy one,” he said.