A High Court judge has emphasised the “important” role the media plays after the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) opted to ban reporters from a hearing relating to a senior garda’s disclosure that gun holsters used by armed units are defective and could lead to accidental deaths.
Judge Garrett Simons on Thursday said “any departure” from hearings being held in public “must be strictly justified” and it is arguable that the WRC has not justified its decision to hear the case of Det Supt Brian O’Reilly behind closed doors. Simons said the media had an “important” role to inform people about proceedings held in the public interest and that this also applied to the WRC.
On Thursday Simons granted O’Reilly leave, or permission, to pursue judicial review proceedings challenging the decision of the WRC.
O’Reilly, the acting head of the Garda National Technical Bureau (GNTB), is seeking to quash a WRC ruling from last month, when the adjudicating officer acceded to a Garda submission that his case contained “sensitivities” that should not be made public.
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O’Reilly, who has Nato and CIA training and a master’s degree in serious crime investigations, is taking his case against the WRC adjudicating officer and the WRC. The Commissioner of An Garda Síochána is named as a notice party.
O’Reilly, who has served as a Garda for more than 30 years, submits that after he made protected disclosures regarding work practices inside An Garda Síochána he was penalised in his workplace and had his pay reduced.
O’Reilly became the acting head of the GNTB in August 2016 and claims he has, since making his disclosures, “suffered detriment”.
He raised concerns over gun-holstering equipment for gardaí, warning that it endangered the lives of armed gardaí and the public in general.
The detective claimed that leather holsters, made and supplied by an equine saddlery in Kildare, may have been responsible for the serious accidental self-wounding of a Garda on protection duty at the residence of the Israeli ambassador in Dublin in June 2020.
Last November, Dublin Circuit Court heard that O’Reilly made several protected disclosures in recent years, one of which regarded alleged breaches of health and safety regulations and endangerment of colleagues due to “unsafe and defective leather pistol holsters”.
O’Reilly told the court that the pistol could be removed from the leather holster even when the retention strap or safety clasp was closed.
Six days after the accidental shooting outside the ambassador’s home, Stephen Silver murdered Det Garda Colm Horkan in Castlerea, Co Roscommon.
Silver (49), of Foxford, Co Mayo, grappled with Horkan and took control of the pistol which had been holstered on the Garda’s hip. Silver kept firing at Horkan until the gun was empty, causing catastrophic injuries.
Silver was sentenced in April 2023 to life imprisonment with a minimum time to be served of 40 years for murdering a garda who was acting in the course of his duties.
O’Reilly said he and another officer investigating Horkan’s death had been informed that Silver told gardaí, while in custody, that he had been able to reach down and pull Horkan’s pistol from the holster.
