Article from the Sept. 2006 issue of the Socialist
newspaper of the Socialist Party, Irish section of the CWI

An Garda Siochana - Corrupt and out of control

By Michael Murphy

THE MORRIS Tribunal into the Donegal Gardai who framed Frank Mc Brearty jnr. and inflicted serious harrassment and abuse on many others during the "investigation" into the death of Richie Barron issued its report in August.

The report states that it was "staggered at the amount of indiscipline and insubordination it has found in the garda force". It went on to say there were a "small but disproportionally influential, core of mischief – making members who will not obey orders, who will not follow procedures, who will not tell the truth and who have no respect for their officers".

The Tribunal while attempting to be hard hitting, fails miserably in making any credible recommendations for how to make An Garda Siochana accountable.

The political establishment during the course of the Tribunal tried to blame the problem on a few rotten apples. However the Morris report shows that corruption in the Gardai is not limited to Donegal but is widespread throughout the country.

Only days after the findings of the Morris Tribunal were released, the special commission of enquiry into the conviction of Dean Lyons raised further damning questions about the behaviour of the Gardai. The Gardai manipulated and abused Dean Lyons, a young homeless man with a heroin problem, into confessing to murdering two women in Grangegorman in 1997. The charges against Dean Lyons were dropped in 1998. Terence Wheelock and Brian Rossiter both died in Garda custody. These deaths have yet to be properly investigated and their families have been harrassed by the Gardai because of their demands for independent enquiries.

The many scandals involving the Gardai, including the murder of John Carthy, highlight that it is a police force out of control and unaccountable to the public. Measures proposed to stamp out corruption and impose discipline on the Gardai are completely inadequate as they rely on the Gardai policing themselves.

The Socialist Party supports the calls of the victims of Garda wrongdoing, mistreatment and abuse for independent public enquiries to fully expose this corruption and cover-ups and achieve some form of justice for the innocent victims. Our party also calls for the establishment of community based policing services that would be democratically controlled by the communities they serve.