Irish Examiner view: Unfortunate choice of words

At the GRA conference, Commissioner Drew Harris was forced to deny that bullying is a problem in the force. Picture: Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin

Earlier this week Garda Commissioner Drew Harris addressed the annual Garda Representative Association (GRA) conference in Mayo and delivered a pointed message intended for criminal groups operating in the jurisdiction.

“My gang is bigger than their gang,” was Harris’s line, one clearly meant to put such groups on notice of the ongoing intonations of gardaí.

To compare his gardaí to a gang just as the force is enduring a particularly difficult week — one in which judgement and discipline in particular are under the microscope — might not have been the best choice of words by the commissioner.

At that same conference, Harris was forced to deny that bullying is a problem in the force, despite allegations that rank and file gardaí are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder due to toxic workplace cultures. As the commissioner spoke, he was jeered by some gardaí in attendance.

The conference has also been taking place in the shadow of last week’s high-profile court case, in which Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch was found not guilty of the murder of David Byrne at the Regency Hotel in 2016. 

That verdict was a considerable setback for the gardaí given the amount of resources and size of the operation the force mounted to try to convict him. Questions remain about the handling of that case which will need to be answered if future investigations are not to end in a similar fashion.

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Any disappointment in Garda ranks with the verdict in the Hutch case was surely compounded by the extraordinary sequel, when a Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (Gsoc) investigator resigned after allegations he had attended a party in Dublin to celebrate Hutch being found not guilty.

This particular development has the potential to undermine the credibility of Gsoc in overseeing police operations within the State if the judgement of its staff is so poor.

Harris can be forgiven for wanting to set down a marker on the Garda commitment to combating organised crime in the country. 

However, describing the police force of the country as a gang, even by way of comparison, is not the way to do so.