Three-week deadline raises pressure to replace garda commissioner

Garda Commissioner Drew Harris is to step down from his role in September. Photo: Leah Farrell/© RollingNews.ie

Pressure is set to ratchet up in the coming weeks to resolve a row which could see no career garda officers applying for the Garda Commissioner job, advertised on Friday.

The Government has given just three weeks for people to apply for the position.

The repeated indications to date are that senior career gardaí - who are likely candidates for the job - will not apply until a long-running dispute over “discriminatory” pension taxes is resolved beforehand.

One source said the decision of the Government to advertise the position, with a three-week window for applications, when the row was unresolved, was “a mess”.

It is understood that no talks are underway to give assurances to career gardaí that the pension issue would definitely be dealt with.

There are additional concerns at the current situation - which the Irish Examiner highlighted last month - given that An Garda Síochána is both a policing and national security service.

With the Garda Commissioner being the boss of both services, there are serious concerns that if no career gardaí apply, that the job could go to either an external candidate from abroad or to a senior police officer from another jurisdiction who joined the Garda in recent years.

Sources have stressed this is not a criticism of the professionalism or integrity of the latter, but rather a matter of principle, adhered to by security services in other countries, that only citizens of that state can be head of the state's security or intelligence agencies.

Announcing the competition on Friday, Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan said he has tasked Public Jobs (the Public Appointments Service) to run an open competition to identify a suitable candidate for appointment as Garda Commissioner.

He said the deadline for applications was May 29 and that he expected to be in a position to make a recommendation to the Government in “late July”.

The information booklet on the position states that candidates of an “appropriate calibre” from policing, security and “civilian backgrounds” can apply.

Last month, in a surprise development, Mr O’Callaghan announced that the current commissioner Drew Harris had agreed to stay on, passed his due retirement in June, to September.

The position of Garda Commissioner is a five-year term with a salary of up to €314,512.

There were protracted efforts last year by the Government to fill one of two deputy commissioner positions.

The claims from career gardaí of “unfair” or “discriminatory” treatment, in terms of pension tax burdens, if they applied for the position compared to candidates who had only recently joined the organisation from another police service, marred the process and featured in the media.

It caused disgruntlement within senior ranks and, eventually, led to what senior officers believed were government reassurances that the pension anomaly would be addressed.

But the lack of firm progress on the matter since then has further deepened the unhappiness and distrust of senior officers.

There are estimates that if career gardaí applied for the commissioner job they could be left with a pension bill from anywhere between €500,000 to €800,000. Some have even put it as high as €1.5m.

“There’s an attitude now of once bitten, twice shy, and people don’t trust the Government,” a source said.