Gardaí must be made responsible for investigating all crime
Every garda commissioner came from outside the force prior to the appointment of deputy commissioner William Quinn in 1965. At the time, morale was low and senior gardaí were critical of the appointment of a series of civil servants to the post of commissioner. There had been a near mutiny within the force under Quinn's predecessor, Daniel Costigan.
That near mutiny at the time of the so-called Macushla Revolt of November 1961 was averted by the intervention of Archbishop John Charles McQuaid. Since then, all the new commissioners have been from within the Garda Síochána, but now the complaint can be heard among the ranks that those at the top of the force are preoccupied with administrative matters. Many complain that the force is being run by desk jockeys who are more concerned with appearance than reality. In short, it is more about public relations than actual performance.
From the public relations standpoint, the gardaí received a couple of black eyes in the last few months. The image of force was seriously tarnished by the May 1 fiasco in Dublin. This was followed by the Frank Shortt case, in which three judges of the Court of Criminal Appeal concluded unanimously that the gardaí orchestrated a miscarriage of justice. The court concluded that perjured garda testimony was used, along with evidence deliberately falsified by gardaí, to secure Shortt's conviction.
Since then, we have had Operation Clean Streets, which is a PR operation supposedly aimed at cleaning up the drug problem and some 600 drug pushers have been arrested in this operation since 1997.
"This gives the message that we're not ignoring communities and that drug dealers can't operate with impunity," one garda said. That is what the Yanks call "a snow job".
The operation is unlikely to net any of the drug barons; all they are catching are the victims. A garda source admitted that "street dealers are mostly addicts" who are selling to feed their own habits. Operation Clean Streets is little more than statistical massage. The crime of possessing illegal drugs is immediately solved, if anyone is arrested with them. From the statistical standpoint, therefore, it means that gardaí can claim 100% detection.
The results of a recent study published by the United Nations indicated that, per capita, people in this country have the highest levels of ecstasy and amphetamine use of 23 European countries surveyed.
We have been making the same mistake that the Americans made with Prohibition in the early part of the last century. By banning alcohol, the Americans not only popularised it but they funded organised crime, and they have never been able to get rid of the gangster. If there were prizes for stupidity, then those who advocate following the example of the Americans should surely sweep the boards.
The Americans have failed dismally in their so-called war on organised crime, and they have probably the worst drug problems of the developed world. Imitating them is a recipe for disaster. We should be learning from their mistakes, not trying to emulate them.
Along with Britain, we have the highest per capita consumption of cannabis in Europe. In the Netherlands, they have a much more tolerant attitude towards cannabis, but the Dutch only rank 13th when it comes to cannabis consumption. We should be trying to learn from them, not blindly following the British and the Americans.
Cannabis is usually denounced as a gateway drug. Many people argue that it is not addictive. Whether that is true or not, it is certainly much less addictive than either alcohol or tobacco, and the prohibition on its sale is not only breeding the same kind of contempt for the law as Prohibition did in the US, but also the same type of gangster culture that was responsible for the murder of Veronica Guerin.
The relatively high use of cocaine in this country is a far more serious problem than cannabis. Cocaine is, unquestionably, an addictive drug. This country has the third highest level of consumption of cocaine in Europe. It's a far cry from a few years ago when Eamon Dunphy foolishly lamented that it was impossible to get good coke in Dublin. Now the city is figuratively awash in the stuff. Can it be long before we have a crack cocaine problem? Crack cocaine a mixture of heroin and cocaine is probably the most addictive substance.
As part of the reforms announced by the Minister for Justice this week, the Garda Commissioner will be made responsible for the performance of the force as well as the attainment of targets set by the minister. It would be nice, for a change, if somebody working for the State were held responsible for some of those things that have been going wrong.
This week, we had the publication of the Judge Alison Lindsay's report into the tainted blood fiasco. 79 people have already died as a result of being infected with contaminated blood. Most of the deaths could be attributed to a lack of knowledge at the time of infection, but the infection of seven haemophiliacs with HIV through contaminated Factor 9 resulted from carelessness or negligence. Five of those people have since died and one passed the disease on to a partner.
The State has spent millions of euro on the Lindsay Tribunal, but the judge concluded that it was not her function "to decide issues of criminal or civil liability". If there was criminal negligence on anybody's part, this will have to be investigated by the gardaí.
As usual, the Government has got things backwards in setting up the tribunal.
Will the people ever learn that a tribunal should be a last resort a means of seeking the truth when all else fails? Our governments keep using them to do the primary investigation, even though this could contaminate any possible prosecution. Evidence given at a tribunal cannot be used at a subsequent prosecution.
People have died as a result of infection with contaminated blood, but the State's way of protecting the public is just to persuade possible culprits to retire by giving them a golden handshake, when what they really deserved, at the very least, was the leather boot.
There has been evidence of bribery, corruption, tax evasion and perjury at the other tribunals, but we will have to wait before anybody can be prosecuted. The chances are that most of them will have a date with the Judge in the next life, before they have to stand trial in this life. Was that the actual aim in setting up the tribunals in the first place?
Tom Gilmartin said in 1998 that he gave £50,000 to Pádraig Flynn for Fianna Fáil 10 years earlier, but this money was apparently never delivered. Yet neither Flynn nor Gilmartin has yet been called to testify about that money. This is absurd.
The Criminal Assets Bureau has been a success and, if necessary, it should be expanded to investigate political corruption. This would be much cheaper and infinitely more effective than the tribunals. The gardaí could be funded handsomely with a fraction of the money being wasted on tribunal lawyers and the undeserved "golden handshakes."
It is not enough to make the Commissioner responsible for performance of the Garda Síochána; the force should be given the full responsibility to investigate crime.
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