The Irish Examiner View: Community gardaí rebuild relationships

Even An Garda Síochána’s most ardent champions would accept that over recent years, maybe decades, the force’s reputation has been badly damaged and its relationship with society undermined.

It has, at times, seemed a force indifferent to authority and one that imagined itself unanswerable to political oversight. One example of this was the threat of an illegal strike over a pay demand that went well beyond public sector agreements.