Opposition will miss commissioner who tried to affect change in force

The sooner we stop talking palaver about the decent men and women in the force the better. writes Gerard Howlin.

NOBODY will miss Nóirín O’Sullivan more than her detractors. There is a delicate art in successful opposition. It’s sadistic and lies in keeping the long suffering, suffering. Like the refinements of torture, only the clumsy and incompetent allow the victim to expire on the rack. Her departure is their loss. With housing, health, and a budget which, if it is to be prudent, cannot be universally pleasing, policing was set to be one of the instruments for the opposition this autumn.

It is not gone, but it is removed, for now, into the processes of the disclosures tribunal and an appointments procedure for her successor which is as clear as mud. Those who fancied they would while away the winter playing with Noirín, as cats play with mice, with only the timing but not the certainty of her end at issue, were mistaken. The baited trap has snapped shut but it’s empty. They can now nibble their cheese themselves.