A GARDA who exposed himself to women in Co Wicklow and another who was a "dealer in pornography", both of whom were dismissed from the force in the past year, were referred to yesterday in a speech by the Garda Commissioner, Mr Patrick Culligan.
The Commissioner was rejecting claims by the staff association, the Garda Representative Association (GRA), that officers were being unfairly suspended or dismissed.
Challenging the GRA to support claims that disciplinary measures were being abused by management, the Commissioner launched an attack on the association, saying it was subjecting the force to ridicule. He took the extraordinary step of detailing offences for which gardai had "left the force" in recent years.
"In 1995, we lost two gardai who simply abandoned their job. W&also lost a flasher, a dealer in pornography, a man who failed to carry out an essential duty and a garda convicted of assault."
The "flasher" referred to by the Commissioner is understood to be a garda who stripped naked and exposed himself to women from the bedroom window of his home in Co Wicklow.
The "dealer in pornography" was a garda who was convicted of selling pornographic videos from a shop he owned in south Co Dublin.
The Commissioner's speech, his last to a Garda staff association before his retirement, follows a series of criticisms of Garda management by the GRA. He said the GRA's criticisms were "outlandish and wholly defamatory". Reports from the conference, he said, held the force up to "petty ridicule".
At yesterday's conference, the Minister for Justice, Mrs Owen, expressed exasperation at the response of the garda representatives to her proposals for legislation to resolve the long running dispute.
She told the conference she had set a date for talks with the GRA and the other parties in the dispute for May 26th and questioned the GRA's decision to prolong the issue by holding another conference on the issue sometime in June.
The Minister intends having her legislation, the Garda Siochana Bill, debated in the Dail on June 6th.
After they had spoken, the GRA general secretary, Mr John Ferry, told the conference the association would fight any attempt to interfere with its internal affairs. However, the GRA has indicated that it accepts the "vast majority" of the proposals put forward in the Minister's Bill.
The breakaway Garda group, the Garda Federation, which represents 2,500 gardai, mostly in Dublin, issued a statement yesterday denouncing the Bill.