Discipline:There has to be discipline in the Garda. It is not a playground for the mischievous. There must be strict accounting and control as to police work.
In any organisation, as well as the two extremes of the committed and the mischief-makers, there are those who can be led astray. This is not surprising as those who can be led constitute perhaps the majority of humankind; though one would hope that the number of those who can be led into wrongdoing is less within the Garda force.
No one reading this report, or considering any action based on it, should lose sight of the fact that the conspiracy uncovered by this Tribunal involved a sergeant and two Garda members, and that two otherwise decent women were dragged into lying on its behalf.
Detective Garda Kilcoyne stands as a good example of an officer who, had he not come under the bad influence of Detective Sergeant White, might well have served within An Garda Síochána without serious blemish. A senior and much respected officer tempted him and he succumbed. The fact that he told the truth, very much against his best interests, shows that decency is, and always was, the foundation of his character. It is shocking that a man like that can be inveigled into a criminal conspiracy.
There were others to whom tentative offers to join the later conspiracy of cover-up were made but who were able to say no, perhaps more easily because they were not in awe of those who would suck them into a morass of corruption.
Look at the results of this: two exemplary Gardaí, Garda McConigley and Garda Moran, were left tarnished by an attempt to fit them up with criminal conduct just so that a more favoured colleague could be pulled out of his difficulty: his difficulty being a criminal trial. The Tribunal has been able to restore their reputation. The Tribunal remains stunned, however, by the findings of fact that it has had to make.
The danger of Indiscipline:
The Tribunal has been staggered by the amount of indiscipline and insubordination it has found in the Garda force. There is a small, but disproportionately 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.
An Garda Síochána is an organisation necessarily vested with wide-ranging powers that impose on the constitutional rights of the citizens of Ireland. It must have, as in a military organisation, accountability and unwavering discipline.
Garda Martin Leonard, for example, was able to act almost at will: applying to arrest a colleague in an investigation in which he was not involved, not wearing his uniform, lying at will, and continually testing the waters as to the vulnerability of his colleagues. The behaviour of Sergeant Conaty, Garda Mulligan and Detective Sergeant White in all of this beggars belief; and yet it happened.
In the course of a Tribunal hearing that was much extended by their dissimulation, the Tribunal was used as a sounding board for deceit in the hope that it too could be inveigled into believing lies.
Where was the code of Garda discipline in all of this? When this matter was unfolding, Sergeant Conaty had faced, on his own evidence, thirty or more discipline enquiries and charges and was awaiting trial for a most serious criminal offence. Garda Mulligan was suspended and facing a discipline enquiry that took years more to unravel. Detective Sergeant White still has not had his discipline charges concluded: and that over a period of several years.
Because of the overlay of legal formalism on this process, procedures can be used to delay and frustrate simple and straightforward investigations. Members of the Garda against whom any wrong is alleged have the dubious, and often exploited, benefit of procedures that compare with those in a murder trial. Garda discipline should be about accounting for how one has served the people of Ireland and about the truth.
The criminal trial model is not the only model available for the disposal of employment matters. In ordinary employment, the criminal trial model is almost never available. Instead, people are given the right to be notified of allegations and the right to respond to them before a decision is made. Then that decision is made subject to a statutory remedy as to whether a reasonable employer would have opted for dismissal in such circumstances. This all has the advantage of being swift and fair.
If it were adopted within the Garda, matters should improve. There would be no right to claim damages for unfair dismissal as Garda service is outside the statutory framework. A simple appeal process from a decision to dismiss could replace the absence of a statutory remedy for unfair dismissal. The Tribunal has already made recommendations in that regard and will not repeat them.
Management:
Management has to be based on trust. It also has to be based on checking and the reasonable possibility that managers will be strictly called to account. Trust and leadership are qualities that ensure the proper direction of any organisation. It is imperative to select those who can display these qualities with energy for the Garda force to move forward. The Tribunal reiterates that many officers meet those criteria.
Any careful reader of the prior reports of this Tribunal can note the damage that can be done by infirm leadership. The Tribunal has already made recommendations in that regard and will not repeat them.
The future of the gardaí:
Young and interested people, who have ambition to do well, and to do good by contributing to our society, are joining An Garda Síochána every year. In part, at least, they are drawn to serve by its proud record.
They are the hope of the future. It is a disservice to them, and to Ireland, that they can be asked to serve under and with some of the kind of members that have populated the pages of this report. They can be led astray.
The young are, of their nature, vulnerable.
They will be left undisciplined and demoralised if pride in the force is not restored through respect for both senior officers and for the kind of committed Gardaí who are also exemplified in this report.
The Garda force needs new kinds of members, from religious and national minorities. The Tribunal has already made recommendations in that regard and will not repeat them.
It would be futile, and a shame, for recruits to discover themselves in an industrial relations morass. Those who are charged with upholding the good order of society are not to be dragged into looking at their vocation as just another way of making money or, worse, of lazing about and making mischief.
It is wrong to suggest that the people of Ireland are getting value from every Garda employed by them. This report, together with the other four reports of this Tribunal, is a sure testament to that.
Discipline is necessary to bring out the kind of energy and optimism to make a real difference: that shone out in the evidence of Sergeant Fergus Treanor and Deputy Commissioner Peter Fitzgerald. That kind of talent and energy is there within the Garda force.
Without structures of strict accounting, and without a swift method of disposing of those who are causing real problems through indiscipline and not working, and of correcting those who can be corrected, a terrible and costly waste of talent will occur. It goes without saying that organised insubordination on a mass scale would be disaster.