History has a lesson for us about part-time and politicised police

THE new president of the Garda Representative Association, John Egan, exhibited incredible insensitivity in essentially issuing a threat to his political bosses. “We are waiting in the long grass for them,” he warned.

The GRA, and the gardaí in general, have a very good case in opposing the new reserve force, which is being cobbled together without proper training. There is chaos in the A&E wards around the country at weekends, but nobody would suggest the introduction of a reserve force of untrained people to act as doctors and nurses to alleviate the problem.

It would probably work because, after killing enough patients, people would take their chances at home. Of course, that would be a crazy remedy, but no dafter than an essentially untrained garda reserve.