Garda wins appeal against dismissal for alleged cocaine use

A Garda disciplinary committee deemed that he had taken cocaine in a Limerick bar and should be dismissed, but the garda inspector has now successfully appeal against that decision.

File Picture.

A garda inspector has won his appeal against a recommendation to dismiss him over an allegation that he snorted cocaine in a Limerick bar.

The appeal has cleared Inspector Arthur Ryan of any drug use and the Garda Commissioner is now expected to lift the suspension Mr Ryan had been under since his arrest in 2019. 

It is unclear whether Inspector Ryan will return to duty when/if his suspension is lifted.

He was arrested along with now-retired superintendent Eamon O’Neill at their respective home addresses in the early hours of May 15, 2019. 

Inspector Ryan was questioned about an incident in which investigating gardaí said that he had snorted a substance — alleged to be cocaine — in the Hurler’s Bar in Limerick the previous January.

The incident was alleged to have happened in the main bar, in full view of CCTV, when he was in the company of Superintendent O’Neill and another garda. 

In the footage, Inspector Ryan was seen to put his hand close to his nose at one point. 

The quality of the footage is understood to have been very grainy, but the investigating gardaí believed that Inspector Ryan had taken a substance from his pocket and snorted it. 

The garda had remained on suspension for the last three and a half years. 

A file was sent to the DPP, but the outcome was a decision that no prosecution should take place.

Inspector Ryan was then subjected to an internal Garda investigation in which the only evidence against him was the CCTV footage and the opinion of a garda who viewed the footage.

Inspector Ryan is understood to have produced various forensic evidence to dispute the allegation, including testimony from an expert witness who had previously been used by the gardaí in murder investigations.

Despite that, the disciplinary committee deemed that he had taken the substance and should be dismissed. 

His successful appeal against that decision has dragged on for the best part of two years — some of the delays were attributable to Covid. 

Inspector Ryan’s legal team complained on a number of occasions about the length of delays.

A source close to Inspector Ryan said the outcome was a huge relief to him and came at the end of “a long and tortuous ordeal”.