Only an open, transparent system will supervise gardaí properly

DO the gardaí need a watchdog? Of course they do — in their interests and in ours.

More or less since the foundation of the state, the gardaí have effectively regulated themselves. In principle, that is a corrupting state of affairs. In fact, we're lucky to have as many good policemen as we do.

But it goes far beyond regulation. The management of the Garda Siochána is as unaccountable as the force itself. Apart from the fact that investigation of complaints is well-nigh impossible, nobody from the Taoiseach down is ever allowed to go further inside the policies and operations of the gardaí than they are prepared to admit.

One of the results of all this is a force that is reluctant to change, and totally hostile to criticism. They are a closed, tight tribe. Even those gardaí who secretly disapprove of the goings-on of some of their colleagues will automatically close ranks in the face of questioning. In fact, they will go further the reaction of most gardaí to any form of criticism, no matter how mild, is to lash out at the critic. So we have lots of good gardaí and some bad ones. But the tribe itself is deeply unhealthy.

In 1988 I was involved in investigating a case involving a young man called Derek Fairbrother. He was beaten within an inch of his life by gardaí, to such an extent that I don't believe he ever fully recovered.

We had eyewitness accounts and photographs. The matter was raised in the Dáil by Dick Spring in June of 1988, and here is part of his account of what happened (edited from the Dáil record of the time): "The uniformed gardaí approached Derek Fairbrother They demanded that Mr Fairbrother get into the back of the squad car As he was walking towards the squad car, without any warning, he was suddenly struck several times on the head by batons. His injuries later show four deep long wounds which clearly came from some hard instrument being brought down hard on the left top side of his head.

"Blood immediately poured from these wounds, and the gardaí continued to push Mr Fairbrother into the back of the squad car. He was thrown prostrate on to the back seat of the car; two of the uniformed gardaí got into the back seat also. One of them sat on top of Mr Fairbrother and they continued to beat him while the squad car was driving to Finglas Garda station, about three-quarters of a mile away. A milkman and his helpers who were passing at the time witnessed this incident and confirmed that there appeared to be no resistance by Mr Fairbrother or any involvement by the others.

"During this short journey Mr Fairbrother was bleeding heavily, with the result that he, his clothes and the gardaí, as well as the squad car, were saturated with blood. Witnesses have confirmed that when the squad car arrived at the Garda station, he was physically dragged out of the car, thrown to the ground, and beaten and kicked again. He tried to protect himself by crawling under the squad car.

"Later, the sergeant in charge suggested that Mr Fairbrother was crawling under the car in an attempt to turn it over. He was then carried into a cell. It appears that in the cell several gardaí continued to beat him. No effort was made to treat his wounds or to clear up the blood. No attempt was made by either of the two sergeants in charge to stop this brutality."

This account was given reluctantly by Dick Spring partly because he knew how the gardaí would react. He had written to the Minister for Justice, Gerry Collins, several days beforehand, and asked him to investigate it without publicity. His letter was ignored. When he did raise it in the Dáil, the then junior minister, Noel Treacy, dealt with the matter on behalf of Collins. Although he acknowledged that the allegations were extremely serious, he used the rather odd phrase that they had "yet to be put to the test of truth." Although all sorts of investigations were promised, I have no way of knowing if they ever took place, because no results were ever published. But all hell broke loose anyway.

The Garda Representative Body, through their then general secretary, Jack Marrinan, launched a strong attack on cheap publicity stunts by politicians, and roundly denied that there could possibly be any substance to the allegations. And a vicious campaign of character assassination began, against Spring and especially against Derek Fairbrother and other members of his family.

The whole tenor of that campaign, which affected the way a great many newspaper people viewed the allegations of brutality, was to the effect that this was a family that was involved in every conceivable sort of skullduggery, and lying about poor, innocent gardaí would be the least they would be capable of.

Four years later, the state quietly apologised to Derek Fairbrother, and gave him nearly half a million euro in settlement. In 2002 14 years later the Supreme Court halted disciplinary proceedings against two sergeants who had been investigated by the Garda Complaints Board after the assault on Derek Fairbrother. One of the sergeants is now a superintendent, the other a detective inspector.

Both have always denied taking part in the assault. And, as I said, the results of any investigation have never been published.

The Fairbrother case is one of many. I have seen reports that suggest that more than 1m a year, on average, is paid out to victims of garda brutality in settlements of one kind or another. That's a subject that might well repay the attention of the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee.

And of course, the whole issue has been highlighted again by the recent Prime Time investigation revealing yet more misdeeds by individual gardaí. The reaction to that programme has produced the usual attitude of denial on the part of the gardaí, but also a heightened sense of community concern.

That concern will not be dealt with by the garda inspectorate proposed by the minister for justice, at least as outlined in his document, General Scheme of the Garda Bill 2003 (we have yet to see the full bill).

In the general scheme, the Garda inspectorate is given two main tasks to investigate complaints, and to investigate matters referred to them by the minister.

It will have no power to initiate enquiries, limited powers of investigation, and precious little power by way of enforcement. And so far, not a penny has been allocated for staff or resources. Compare that to the powers and resources of the Police Ombudsman of Northern Ireland very accessible through their website www.policeombudsman.org.

If we're serious about this issue, we're going to have to start again.

Not only must the opposition support the minister, but the minister must work with the opposition, to produce a bill that's really meaningful and an inspectorate / ombudsman with real teeth. And while they're at it, they should get equally serious about reforming management as well as accountability. Otherwise, public confidence in the gardaí, already very fragile, will collapse.