'It was a job worth doing': Gardaí ‘undervalued and under attack’

Delegates at the Garda Representative Association (GRA) annual conference voted this week to withdraw co-operation from planning meetings ahead of Ireland next year assuming the EU presidency.

The vote was preceded by speaker after speaker urging delegates to vote to pass the motion, but some, like Cork city division delegate and central executive committee (CEC) member Pádraig Harrington, said the motion did not go far enough.

Ireland will hold the EU presidency from July to December 2026, and during that period Irish ministers will be responsible for chairing meetings of the EU Council and steering its legislative and policy agenda.

The EU presidency will be a pretty big deal for Ireland, and during the period of the presidency, Irish ministers will be responsible for chairing meetings of the EU council, and steering the EU’s legislative and policy agenda.

The Programme for Government includes a commitment to resource and deliver a successful EU presidency, so if the rank and file members of our police force are refusing to engage with management, this could present a significant issue for Government.

The GRA represents more than 11,000 frontline members of An Garda Síochána’s 14,000-strong force, and at this year’s conference delegate after delegate denounced the garda commissioner’s policies.

The theme of this year’s conference was ‘It was a job worth doing – undervalued and under attack’, a retort to the garda recruitment campaign slogan ‘A job worth doing’, and it seemed to reflect accurately the general mood of delegates.

The conference took place at the Gleneagles Hotel in Killarney, and ran from Monday to Wednesday.

It followed the pattern laid down last year, when Garda Commissioner Drew Harris became the first sitting commissioner not to be invited to a GRA conference.

That had followed an almost unanimous vote of no confidence in Mr Harris by GRA members.

The then justice minister Helen McEntee then declined to go, saying it would be inappropriate for her to attend in his absence, something which added to the disgruntlement at the conference.

This year the commissioner was again not invited, and the new justice minister Jim O’Callaghan similarly felt unable to attend.

The level of disdain expressed at the conference toward Mr Harris and his policies would be hard to overstate, with GRA general secretary Ronan Slevin instancing Mr Harris’s introduction of the so-called operating policing model.

It was billed as making the force more modern, but it has been opposed by garda associations as they claim it damages community links.

“I suppose you could say that he’s left a legacy of fear and mistrust in relation to our members,” Mr Slevin said.

“If you were to analyse the commissioner’s term, I suppose you’d have to say that he’s implemented an operational policing model that isn’t working [and]... has removed community policing from Ireland, which was the envy of Europe.

“The system we had, that’s completely gone.”

Pádraig Harrington works as a detective based at the Bridewell, and he has worked for 25 years as a garda.

He said the biggest issue in the Cork city division is resources, and the lack of manpower, which he said is preventing advancement for some of his colleagues.

“We have about 50 guards that have been successful in competitions and because of the lack of resources they can’t be put into the positions they have applied for and have been successful in getting, because they would be leaving the frontline section so depleted, there’s no superintendent willing to release them,” he said.

Those advancements would include promotions to detective, and transfer to the traffic corps.

“That’s the huge issue that Cork city is facing, the lack of resources, and the regional and national units that are based in Cork city being counted as a Cork resource by garda management, and they shouldn’t be.” 

A garda spokesperson said: “The allocation of personnel from competition panels, including to detective and roads policing, are considered on an ongoing basis in the context of the operational needs and resourcing requirements of each division and region.

“Placement on a competition panel is not a guarantee of appointment.”

Mr Harrington said that while An Garda Síochána gives a figure of 673 gardaí working in the Cork city division, that figure includes 80 who work in national units based in Cork, such as the computer crime unit, and regional units like armed support and the Anglesea St regional control room.

“While they’re stationed in and around Cork city, they’re part of regional and national units and they are not a resource of Cork city,” he said.

Asked to comment, a garda spokesperson said there had previously been negative commentary around too much centralisation of garda specialities based in Dublin, adding that local gardaí were now trained to serve in speciality areas.

“Any suggestion that specialist gardaí (are) not providing a local service to the community (is) extremely disappointing.”

Paul Breen, GRA CEC member for West Cork, has been on the force for 20 years, and he said fewer and fewer frontline gardaí now find themselves doing more and more work.

“People as well feel that they’re not being listened to and engaged with, and that’s where that is coming from,” he said.

“When I started out, I loved the job, but it is now more and more stressful, and I don’t think I would recommend it to a family member to go for it, and it is a sad reflection to be saying that. It’s not the job it used to be, it has changed, not for the better.”

Mr Breen said he was a community-based garda working in a rural area, but the exponential increase in red tape and screen time over recent years meant less time out and about, and local people were not getting the sense of security they once got from a garda presence in the community.

“You’re tied up, or you’re covering for different members in different areas, and you’re not seeing your own local people, whereas before you’d be around the town and around the countryside,” he said.

John Parker is a 35-year veteran based in Mallow, and he is the GRA Cork North CEC delegate. He said he believed the manner of engagement with garda representative associations had changed discernibly in recent times.

“In the last number of years, An Garda Síochána has baked their own cake as regards what policy they want, and then they drop it on our laps, and we have to recover from it,” he said. 

“Sometimes if they had engaged with us at an early stage we could have resolved these things and guided them in a way that these policies would be easier to roll out.”

Garda Commissioner Drew Harris will finish up in his role in September, when he is due to retire. Despite reports that there have been difficulties in finding a replacement, in all likelihood by next spring’s GRA conference there will be a new sheriff in town.

Next year, Ireland will take centre stage as it assumes the EU presidency.

Brendan O’Connor, former GRA president, told reporters this week that frontline gardaí are deeply frustrated with management, and this was behind their decision to withdraw co-operation ahead of the EU presidency.

“There’s a feeling among members that our terms and conditions are under constant erosion, and what is on the horizon is again another major event where our members will be asked to mobilise in large numbers, leave their families, and travel long distances,” he said.

“And what they’re saying is ‘We need a bit of clarity around our terms and conditions that facilitate the policing of those events,’ and they’re saying ‘Don’t take our flexibility for granted, because our flexibility and commitment is not being reciprocated.”

The next garda commissioner will probably be hoping they have a smoother relationship with the rank and file than Mr Harris has had.