A tragically revealing statement - Garda commissioner besieged

COMMISSIONER Nóirín O’Sullivan’s Saturday statement on the two latest policing scandals may not be as chilling as her predecessor Martin Callinan’s January 2014 “I think it’s quite disgusting” passive-aggressive attack on whistleblowers but it was as misjudged and, tragically, as revealing.

That her statement was issued on a Saturday, albeit prompted by Taoiseach Enda Kenny, smacks of the desperation of the besieged. That it is straight out of the Garda circle-the-wagons handbook weakens the commissioner’s position. That she was unable to explain, in even the vaguest terms, the failure of supervision and ethics — her words — that led to the grossly exaggerated drink-driving test figures or how 14,700 wrongful convictions were secured weakens her position considerably. That vagueness also gives rise to the suspicion, however nascent, that she may not feel obliged to explain those implosions to the public. That An Garda Síochána were aware of the fake drink-driving figures since 2014 and the wrongful prosecutions since 2016 and are as yet unable to offer even a the-dog-ate-my-homework explanation pushed her position towards the untenable.

Though the commissioner was offered qualified support hissed through gritted teeth by Mr Kenny and Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald, Fianna Fáil’s justice spokesman Jim O’Callaghan, unburdened by the prospect of having to make a decisive intervention, better reflected the gravity of the situation. He described the statement as “completely unsatisfactory” and said that his party could no longer express confidence in Ms O’Sullivan.

Just a year after Ms O’Sullivan succeeded Mr Callinan, in March 2014, the Central Statistics Office declined to publish Garda crime figures because they judged them unreliable. The CSO found that detection rates were exaggerated and that the classification of crimes was at best creative if not deliberately inaccurate, so last week’s revelations are more part of a pattern than an exception. But what to do? What is the honest, practical response? The Government must, rightly, balk at the prospect of losing a second commissioner so very quickly. Its credibility and judgement would be questioned. An Garda Síochána’s moral authority and morale would suffer another blow, one it can scarcely afford.

Maybe it’s time to ask if the culture so alive in our police force mirrors a wider ambivalence, a society-wide flexibility around the standards or professionalism all admirable and functioning societies are built on? A refusal by bus drivers to use fuel-saving technology, this week’s HSE scandal or any one of a myriad private sector swizzes may not seem as seditious as making up crime statistics but they all feed into the same socially destructive narrative.

Noírín O’Sullivan may or may not be commissioner when Enda Kenny quits — plenty of latitude there — but it is delusional to imagine that removing a figurehead will change a society’s or an organisation’s culture. That requires something far more fundamental. Maybe it’s time we all asked ourselves if we are really as blameless as we might like to think we are in this cycle of despair and destruction.