Garda magazine may close amid GRA row

Garda Review, the trade magazine for rank and file gardaí, may be shut down in the midst of a row between the magazine’s editor and the Garda Representative Association.

In correspondence seen by the Irish Examiner, the board of Garda Review has instructed the editor that no further money be paid to contributors to the magazine until a review of its viability be undertaken. This, according to a solicitor’s letter from the board to the editor, is due to the fact that “interest in the magazine generally has dwindled”. There is no figures for circulation or subscription attached to the letter. Garda Review is 95% owned by the GRA.

The threat of closure comes at a time when the editor, former journalist John O’Keeffe, is embroiled in a row with the GRA over a complaint of bullying and harassment. Mr O’Keeffe is claiming he has attempted for two months to present his complaint but despite repeated attempts, the governing body of the GRA has not told him how to go about it.

Yesterday, the body, the 31 members of the GRA’s Central Executive Committee, was furnished with the legal correspondence between Mr O’Keeffe and the Garda Review board.

The board’s solicitor’s letter refers to the future of Mr O’Keeffe’s contract to publish and edit the Garda Review in the event of closure. “Needless to say, if the magazine is to be discontinued our respective clients will have to engage further. That can be done only once a decision is made.”

Mr O’Keeffe, a former journalist, stepped down as director of communications of the GRA in September citing “untenable differences” on policy. However, he continued in his role as editor of the Garda Review under three-year contract.

The month after he stepped down from the communications role, he wrote to the Central Executive Committee of the GRA declaring he wanted to make bullying and harassment complaints but was not aware of how he could do so.

His solicitor’s letter to the Garda Review stated that Mr O’Keeffe now considered his complaint to come under the Protected Disclosures Act which provides for protection against retribution from an employer.

“Termination of the Garda Review Contract as an act of retaliation/penalisation of our client for the complaint made will only serve to increase the range of legal remedies available to our client,” states the letter. When contacted last night, Mr O’Keeffe refused to comment. “That’s with my lawyers now and I’m not saying anything,” he said.

A series of questions submitted to the office of the GRA secretary general Pat Ennis received no reply by the time of going to print.