THE Garda Commissioner and the Chief Constable of the RUC have many problems on - their minds, both individually and collectively - not least murder and mayhem. One issue of which their predecessors, Paddy Culligan and Sir Hugh Annesley, were aware but left unresolved, and with which the new men, Pat Byrne and Ronnie Flanagan, will have to deal is the thorny question of the RIC silver.
Commissioner Byrne told the Association of European Journalists last week - in a light-hearted fashion it must be said - that while visiting his counterpart in Belfast recently he spied the silver. "I saw it and I want it back. At some stage it could be an international incident."
The RIC was disbanded in 1922 and by the end of the year, the commissioner said, they had evacuated their old home in the Phoenix Park to make room for the Garda Siochana. "And when they left, they took the silver from the Garda Club and I personally have taken it up with them.
The club, an officers' mess at the Phoenix Park depot, was said to have been furnished in such a grand style that it created awe in many of the officer cadets who arrived from modest backgrounds. The club silver was dispersed by lot among members on disbandment. Some is now in private hands; a number of silver spoons with RIC insignia have been donated to the Garda Museum which has been relocated to the Record Tower in Dublin Castle and yet more, including candelabra, is at RUC headquarters in Knock outside Belfast.
It's unlikely the Northerners will give the silver up without a fight. In fact, they could claim it is rightly theirs. When the force was divided, they had to get some of the spoils.