Sinn Féin TD calls for inquiry into ‘rogue’ gardaí in Leitrim

A Sinn Féin TD has called for a commission of investigation into alleged Garda malpractice, which he claims is ongoing in the Leitrim district.

Sligo-Leitrim TD Martin Kenny alleged “rogue” gardaí were using criminal informants to entrap and prosecute people.

He also claimed senior officers were protecting the rogue gardaí and covering for them “with secrecy and denial”.

He alleged gardaí were “running their own informants” outside the rules of the covert handling of intelligence Sources (CHIS) programme.

The new TD also raised concerns about the investigation of the case of a missing man from Aughavas, Co Leitrim, who has never been found. He asked if the protection of a Garda informant, the last person seen in the missing man’s company, was put before a proper investigation of the disappearance in 2011.

Alleged malpractice

Speaking during the second day of debate on the O’Higgins commission report into alleged Garda malpractice in the Cavan-Monaghan district, he said he wanted to “state clearly that in my area of Leitrim, as in other places, the vast majority of gardaí are doing their job honestly and diligently”.

He told the Dáil the allegations had been brought to his attention by whistleblowers, both serving gardaí and former gardaí, over the past two years.

He said in one case a Garda informant working under the direction of two gardaí stole tools and a generator from a shed and then sold the generator to a man whose house was searched the next day and the property recovered. The man was charged and convicted with having stolen property.

NCT bribe

A Garda informant was allegedly instructed by his Garda handler to set a trap for a person at an NCT centre, leaving money as a bribe to get the car through the test, which it should not have passed. Later that employee was charged and convicted of accepting a bribe and he lost his job.

Mr Kenny also highlighted an alleged case in which a man was wrongly charged with possession of a stolen tractor, “although there was no evidence other than that the tractor may have been collected from beside a farmyard owned by this man”.

A detective sergeant who instructed “to the dismay of local gardaí” that the man should be charged said the Garda followed the man outside the station, waving the charge sheet at him and saying: “I can make this go away if you bring me the real culprit.”

He also alleged senior gardaí were aware for weeks that two serving gardaí faced threats to their safety by a group of criminals.