Gardaí in crisis - We all need a rejuvenated police force

Yesterday’s startling events, Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan’s resignation and Cabinet revelations about widespread Garda telephone bugging, came as close to rendering the acronym GUBU insufficient as any scandal since double-murderer Malcom McArthur was arrested in the home of then attorney general Patrick Connolly in the summer of 1982.

The day’s first upheaval, Mr Callinan’s resignation, was inevitable but unfortunate. It destabilises the Government and further undermines An Garda Síochána. Unless the departure is the catalyst for the reform that should have followed the Morris and Smithwick reports it may in time, sadly, be seen as just another empty gesture. The announcement of an independent Garda authority is welcome, but judgement will have to wait until it is seen it can act with autonomy. This caution is unavoidable because of Justice Minister Alan Shatter’s sidelining of the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission.

The second Gubu-esque moment, unexpected and sinister, came with the disclosure that a system existed in many Garda stations to record all telephone calls as recently as November. This just adds to the momentum undermining the force, one that fuels the dispiriting sense that another cornerstone institution of society is imploding. That sense is exacerbated by the fact that just as then Commissioner Callinan was being so very critical of Garda whistleblowers for revealing what he termed “personal details” around penalty points, many of his officers were, it seems, sanctioned to record phone calls without the knowledge of those being recorded. A charge of hypocrisy is the very least that can be levelled. The tradition of selecting a commissioner’s successor from within the senior ranks of the force must now come into question.