Readers' Blog: Drew Harris implies lack of integrity of evidence
I am a retired member of An Garda Síochána and I write to you on a matter of what I think is of public, if not national, importance. I still take an interest in the goings on in my former job, although I sometimes wonder why, with all the scandals that have happened since I retired in 2010.
However, it is regarding scandals that I write to you. I refer to Garda Commissioner Drew Harris’ appearance before the justice committee in the Dáil on Wednesday, February 13.
While being questioned by Clare Daly TD regarding the break-up of the Garda Technical Bureau and their merger with Forensic Science Ireland, he used the word “independent” twice. He stated that the break-up of the Technical Bureau was to facilitate the “independent” provision of forensic evidence and examination of same, and that the gathering of such evidence was to be “independent” of a Garda investigation.
As a former member of the Garda Technical Bureau I take these statements as insulting. To imply that the retrieval of evidence by members of the bureau, past and present, was not independent, is to question the integrity of each of those members and also the validity of every major crime investigation that has taken place in this country since the foundation of the State.
The sole aim of members of the bureau is to record, retrieve and maintain, through a secure chain of evidence, all items recovered at a crime scene. In my 10 years in the bureau, no senior counsel or High Court judge ever called into question my independence or integrity.
For the present commissioner to do so now, calls into question both that integrity, and indeed truth of the oath I took when I joined An Garda Síochána, swearing to do my job without any fear, favour, malice or ill will.
![<p>'Despite the fact that the Irish Science Teachers’ Association, the ASTI and the Irish Universities Association representatives on the NCCA Biology, Chemistry, and Physics have publicly dissociated from the flawed model [in the senior cycle curriculum plan], all of these concerns have been ignored by the Department of Education.' </p>](/cms_media/module_img/9742/4871127_9_augmentedSearch_PA-49006269_1_.jpg "<p>'Despite the fact that the Irish Science Teachers’ Association, the ASTI and the Irish Universities Association representatives on the NCCA Biology, Chemistry, and Physics have publicly dissociated from the flawed model [in the senior cycle curriculum plan], all of these concerns have been ignored by the Department of Education.' </p>")
