New president slates Garda watchdog's 'incompetence'

RELATIONS BETWEEN rank and file gardaí and the Garda Ombudsman Commission have deteriorated after the new president of the Garda Representative Association (GRA) launched a strong attack on the commission.

Speaking at the GRA’s annual conference in Tullow, Co Carlow, Michael O’Boyce said the ombudsman commission had “excelled itself in its blundering incompetence”.

The commission responded saying it was “amused” by the “unfortunate” criticism. A spokesman accused the GRA, which has over 11,000 members, of behaving inappropriately.

Mr O’Boyce said some of the commission’s personnel investigating a complaint against Garda members in Limerick had searched staff lockers at the city’s Roxboro Road station.

He said the Garda members involved had nowhere to store evidence bags from criminal trials so had put them in their lockers for safe keeping.

However, during the course of their searches the commission’s investigators had disturbed the evidence and had taken some items away for inspection. He believed the chain of evidence, and the criminal cases they related to, could now be compromised as a result.

Mr O’Boyce also said gardaí had been told that the commission would be much more efficient and “speedy” compared to the defunct Garda complaints board. However, he knew of one member who was told eight months ago a complaint had been made about him but he had heard nothing since.

“Now that’s unacceptable,” he said.

Mr O’Boyce was also critical of the way the commission’s officers had arrived at a Garda station in Dublin when it was discovered a garda had taken his own life there.

The commission’s spokesman Kieran Fitzgerald told Newstalk radio that he was amused by Mr O’Boyce’s criticisms. He accused him of conducting debate inappropriately and of misrepresenting the commission.

Referring to the allegations about evidence bags he said: “I think Michael knows full well that neither he nor I are, for legal reasons, able to discuss ongoing criminal investigations in any kind of detail in public. So to suggest that in some way evidence was tampered with in a manner that wasn’t appropriate, is really not appropriate.” He said Mr O’Boyce’s difficulties appeared to relate to the fact that the commission has the power to search items belonging to gardaí.

Mr Fitzgerald said he took exception at the way Mr O’Boyce had introduced into public debate the case of the garda who took his own life. “I think it’s very unfortunate that the incoming president of the GRA should choose to bring a very tragic case involving the death of one of their own members into this conversation, fairly cheaply in my opinion,” he said.

Mr Fitzgerald pointed out that the commission’s investigators had sealed off the scene of the suicide because they were legally obliged to investigate all deaths involving Garda personnel.