Drew Harris interview: ‘We’re living in a far more dangerous and fractious world’

If the Government had stuck to the original plan, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris would be just weeks away from retirement and the jockeying to find his replacement would be entering the final furlong. Instead, the former RUC, then Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), officer was granted an extension of almost two years in February – though he now faces a motion of no confidence from the biggest section of his workforce, rank and file gardaí.

Harris, however, is determined to dig in and is not ruling out staying on even longer. He says he will “leave it to others” to decide if he would be offered a second extension when his term expires in 2025. Why would he want to stay on for longer, though, especially after first joining the RUC 40 years ago?

An Garda Síochána is still in need of significant reform and, for months, it has been under pressure over policing in Dublin. Serious assaults in the capital have dominated the headlines for much of the summer. The public discourse around whether the city is safe or not has become a big problem for Government, especially so-called “law and order Fine Gael” and, in particular, Minister for Justice Helen McEntee.

The Garda Representative Association (GRA) motion of no confidence in the commissioner is an unprecedented event. More than 11,000 rank and file gardaí – in a force of just under 13,900 – are voting on whether they have confidence in their boss in a dispute, mainly, over rosters.

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In a wide-ranging interview with The Irish Times, Harris said he first heard about the GRA vote of no confidence through the media. Was he angry about it, upset even?

“I was genuinely surprised. And then I was a little perplexed about what on earth this was about,” he replies. “I think as time went on, and it’s been out there nearly four weeks now, I became very concerned about it because of the impact that was having, around both public confidence in the [Garda] organisation but also then because of the discourse in the organisation. I think it left [GRA] members with a choice that they weren’t particularly looking for.”

Describing it as “unnecessary” process, he asks: “What credibility can it have?” He also believes the GRA leadership, in the way they have phrased their question, has “predetermined what they think the answer should be”. He adds: “I’m not actually joining the hustings. I’m not running any ‘yes’ campaign, if I can put it like that.”

As he faces that unusual vote, the thorny issue of violence on the streets of Dublin is not going away. The fact the victims have, in some cases, been United States and UK tourists has added to the intensity of the debate. Harris says he accepts there is a need for a higher visibility policing presence in the capital.

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This week, the Garda set out how it would surge policing in the capital, using the €10 million overtime top-up made available by Government. The stance of the force will become more overt and aggressive, with 20,000 extra shifts worked to year end. Armed gardaí and the Public Order Unit will be involved in the policing surge in central Dublin.

“Undoubtedly, we’ve had very serious incidents, nobody denies that. But is that the same as lawlessness? Those are two different things,” he says.

“I know we’re being compared to other European cities, I’m not sure every city could say they’ve had the same success in terms of identifying perpetrators,” he adds, noting the Garda response to the recent attacks in Dublin had been very swift and was “within 20 seconds on one occasion”.

Does he think Dublin is safer than other European capital cities?

“Well, yes, I would say we are safer,” he says, adding the “profile of policing” in Dublin was aimed towards antisocial behaviour, organised shoplifting and people “trading in drugs and using drugs”. In other cities, a terrorist threat had to be addressed and even the nature of the policing that was visible on the streets was very different from Ireland as a stance akin to a military presence was required in many European cities.

Harris said assaults on the streets of Dublin had not increased this year. He added the assaults that had, at times, dominated the media in Ireland in recent months would not warrant the same attention in European cities.

“And they wouldn’t make the headlines in comparable-sized cities in the UK,” he adds, implying the threshold for catastrophising crime was lower in Ireland. Data obtained by The Irish Times shows assaults in public places in Dublin are marginally lower this year; some 2,353 to the start of August compared to 2,429 and 2,535 in the same period last year and 2019 respectively.

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“Where we want to go next relates to the visibility that we have in the city centre,” he says. “That seems to be a particular issue. We recognise the importance of visibility and giving people assurance. I do recognise people’s concerns and what’s being voiced – there have been very serious incidents. But I’d also point to the fact that individuals have been charged in respect of those [attacks]. So there’s not a free run for people in the city.”

Harris believes assaults happening behind closed doors – domestic violence in all its forms – was a bigger, more complex and pernicious problem. “We’re going to have in the order of 50,000 domestic abuse incidents happening this year,” he says. When he reviews a report each day about all the critical incidents gardaí have dealt with nationally in the previous 24 hours, domestic attacks feature very frequently. In some cases, women who are brutally beaten – including older women attacked by their grandsons – barely survive, others do not.

Against that background, “in the midst of all the reporting around the city centre of Dublin,” Harris says he “must not ignore” the huge scale of domestic violence simply “because those victims are not in the public domain”. The often complex nature of domestic violence means a thorough, and repeated, policing response is required even to get a victim to disclose the full extent of the violence they are suffering.

Harris believes progress in the way domestic violence is addressed represents the biggest success of his five years in charge, but adds former commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan started the reforms. Members of the new Garda Protective Services Bureau and local units had been trained to better respond to domestic violence. It was also vital Garda members accused of domestic and sexual crimes were pursued thoroughly.

His experience of UK policing had demonstrated to him that some police officers were engaged in domestic violence and abusing their powers to obtain sexual favours. This experience was one of the main reasons he created the Anti Corruption Bureau, aimed at unearthing corruption, in all its guises.

“The recent scandals that impacted on the London Metropolitan Police, they do have a long tail, and I knew that from my experience in UK policing. I wanted to be sure that we in An Garda Síochána are seen to be active and proactive around these issues... There must be an element, always, of deterrence - that somebody is actually watching this seriously, seeking it out.”

One criticism of Harris often heard is that he suspends too many gardaí and is too quick to do so. When he took over as commissioner, in late 2018, some 34 Garda members were suspended. That number began to climb almost immediately after he was appointed and currently stands 120 suspensions. And, now, the GRA has launched a judicial review regarding four gardaí suspended for three years in the Limerick division.

The breakdown of allegations against the 120 members currently suspended includes, among others: 17 cases of perverting the course of justice; 16 theft, forgery or fraud cases; 15 cases involving sexual allegations; 12 discreditable conduct cases; 12 cases of road traffic crimes or driving while intoxicated; 10 cases of domestic violence or abuse and eight drug-related cases.

“I don’t believe I suspend too many people,” Harris says. “I regret the number that are suspended because we are making that choice as a last resort.” He insists some of the allegations made are very serious. For him, “the crux” of the cases can be a “loss of trust in his individual” Garda member, all of whom have very strong powers.

The Garda is also on course to record 140 to 150 resignations this year, double the rate of 2020. “It is a regret to me that people are leaving,” Harris says. He points out, however, many resigning were young gardaí with less than five years service. Some wanted to avail of opportunities, such as living abroad for a period, which they were denied during the pandemic. The Garda was also competing with other employers in a buoyant economy. And the Western Australia Police force had “made a fairly aggressive pitch” to Garda members and British police officers to entice them away.

Garda recruitment campaigns were generating, however, “about the same levels of interest” now as before the pandemic. They must now “gain momentum”, especially as Garda numbers had fallen from 14,750 in 2020 to below 13,900 at present after recruitment was halted during the pandemic. Harris also warned that, given the recruitment spikes of 30 and 40 years ago, Garda retirements would soon surge.

“This decade there is going to be an ongoing issue about recruitment to An Garda Síochána,” he says, adding the retirement age may need to be increased above the current 60 years – though he did not think raising it to 65 years was realistic. The maximum age recruits can join, which is currently 35 years, was also under examination.

Harris has already said in public comments that when the Garda reaches 15,000 sworn members – which will be a record – it had to grow even further. He has now suggested some 20,000 Garda members would be needed “in the next 15 to 20 years”, given population changes and police work becoming more labour intensive and complex.

He says as cyber threats increased, policing needed to move to match it, which required very specific skills. This was especially important to safeguard Ireland’s international reputation as a “highly connected”, safe and stable place for investment.

Many in the force complained Harris’s term has been marked with a shift towards bureaucracy and form-filling, resulting in hours of administration at computer screens at the expense of front line street policing. The commissioner wonders what the word “bureaucracy” means in that context.

He pointed to the recent scandals around the cancellation of 999 calls or some 55,000 junior liaison, or youth crime, cases being “lost”. These issues, he says, came about due to a failure to “follow through” and ensuring incidents were “properly” handled with “what you might call bureaucracy”.

He continues: “I would say that’s pursuing a standard and a quality of service such that I can convince myself and answer to the minister and the accountability bodies about the quality of service we can provide. People also expect the service to be the same right across Ireland and that’s what we’re doing: making sure that the service you receive in Kerry and Donegal is the same as it is in Dublin, that’s all part of this. Once you standardise the service, then I think you can start to lift the service.”

Harris said at the outset of the pandemic, the far right posed a threat to state security. Now, more than three years on, he seems unconvinced that cohort was growing in number or strength. “Everybody, it seems to me, wants to be the chief of their small contingent,” he says of the Irish far right scene. “They don’t seem to be able to manage themselves, organisationally.”

Instead, there were now “a whole set of hostile State actors” that posed a threat to security, especially as the Republic was an European Union member state with “very strong relationships with Nato countries”. “That’s part of our reality that has been completely aggravated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” he says.

“What that means for us is we have to be very conscious of our national security in its widest sense, in terms of our economic security which can be threatened by cybercrime, by cyber threats; and in terms of our reputation as well… all of these things are commodities we need to protect... We have to be conscious of the fact that we’re living in a far more dangerous and fractious world than we were five years ago.”

Domestically, Harris says dissident republicans were the biggest threat. He added if the recent data breach of PSNI members’ names and other personal details happened to a police force in Britain, “it certainly would have been issue”. It was a big security concern in the North, however, because of the “small lunatic fringe” of dissident republicans. He insisted co-operation between the Garda and PSNI was seamless and very fast when required.

When news of the PSNI data breach occurred earlier this month “within 10 or 15 minutes” after the Garda becoming aware of it, “we started putting eyes and ears just to see what was being said, in dissident republican circles, frankly”. Harris says: “And we have kept a watching brief and we would exchange information constantly then with the PSNI and the British security services, MI5. That is just ongoing every day co-operation.”

Harris says while the PSNI was regarded as more officious and the Garda more relaxed in its manner, his force was much better resourced, meaning it now had the funds to reform for the future. The Garda also had much better “connection” with local communities than the PSNI. Efforts to maintain such a relationship with communities they served had been “abandoned” by police forces in many other countries. In other developed nations, police officers also felt the need to keep their professions a secret, as was the case in the PSNI, though never in the Republic.

“My colleagues from America who would visit us; they are just dumbfounded at the connection [between gardaí and the public] because they, too, would maybe not tell their neighbours that they are police officers. And that’s a change for them in the last 20 years.”