President ADC Address to Minister For Justice
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President Address to Minister For Justice Jim O'Callaghan
Minister, it gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the 48th Annual Delegate Conference of the Garda Representative Association. I want to thank you for your attendance and acknowledge your willingness to take time to meet and speak with our delegates. We face many challenges and you cannot solve all our problems but your willingness to listen and acknowledge the scale of the challenges facing GardaÍ on the streets of Ireland and your willingness to engage with their elected representatives is appreciated. As you know the GRA is committed to problem solving and we are proud to call ourselves a solution based Association when we are listened to and are provided with meaningful engagement.
It’s 2026 Minister,
· It’s 21 years since the establishment in 2005 of the Garda Inspectorate.
· It’s 10 years since the Garda Modernisation and renewal programme was launched promising advancements in technology.
· We have had a policing authority for the past 10 years to ensure the right people are appointed to senior positions and to provide a public forum in which Garda management are held to account.
· We have even had a full Commission on the future of policing in 2018 whose recommendations have evolved into a Police Service for the future, the implementation of which is being overseen by the Department of the Taoiseach.
· All this has been underpinned by the largest budgets ever allocated to An Garda Síochána
Yet today, with unprecedented funding and a myriad of oversight bodies a gang of youths on scramblers and scooters can terrorise residents of suburbs with impunity, gangs of teenagers wreak havoc in our towns and city centres with no fear of repercussions. Criminals and road traffic offenders choose to laugh in the face of Gardaí as they know exactly how to exploit what is in effect a de facto no pursuit policy on the rare occasion they might be intercepted by a patrol whose driver is allowed to turn on a blue light and signal them to stop. And should a member take initiative and pursue these criminals, they know that they may well face internal discipline and even criminal prosecution.
We have members and colleagues left languishing on suspension, often times for years and denied due process and fair procedure. Earlier today this room heard from some of these members. And Minister, the stories that were told were shameful, disturbing, and unbecoming of a Garda force that prides itself on being one that polices by consent and immerses itself in communities across the country. How can members of An Garda Síochána be treated so disrespectfully and with such utter contempt.
Minister, you can shrug your shoulders and say that these are matters for the Garda Commissioner and his Senior management but excuse the pun, that’s an utter Cop Out !! … The Commissioner and by association, his senior team, are appointed, overseen and report to you and your Government and many of these scandals went unchecked by yourselves under the responsibility of the former Commissioner Drew Harris. Last year we asked you to come here and hear the concerns of the membership directly but you refused. Yes, you refused politely, and gave your reasoning, but at the end of the day you refused.
Minister, you can’t keep talking out of both sides of the mouth. You tell us we have your full support, yet when we come knocking, we are consistently kicked down the road with promises of progress through engagement and collaboration. But what we often get is distance and procrastination.
The theme of this year’s Annual Conference is ‘Justice in Practice: Fair Rights, Fair Rates & Fair Treatment’. And this Theme is directed at you, Minister, and your senior team.
We have spoken with you, and communicated with your office regarding the difficulties we face with DPenders, delays, disrespect and obfuscation are all we meet. Under your advisement we wrote to Minister Jack Chambers Office seeking an urgent meeting, one which you yourself agreed to attend with us. We have received an acknowledgement of that request to date and nothing more. I believe this underpins our claims and concerns and now Minister we are seeking your immediate engagement to arrange that meeting to address many of our concerns including the manner in which we were treated at the last round of Pay talk,. Because Minister we will not be accepting more of the same.
We have raised with you repeatedly our concerns over the New Conduct & Performance Regulations and the lack of detail regarding minor Breaches of Discipline, we have outlined clearly the fears we have of the possible escalation of all offences into the Conduct & performance Regulations, we have outlined clearly to you the fears we hold for our members who we believe ultimately have no proper Appeals process and in a large part, our fears are due to the refusal to include an employee Representative onto the Appeals board. You have told us that if and when one of our members are affected and disenfranchised you will look at, and review the Regulations at that point. Minister please listen carefully to the following as I believe our concerns can be captured, articulated and can provide a sound basis for these fears.
I began my address Thanking you for listening to us and our concerns, but now as President of this, the largest of all the Representative Associations who’s members are most affected, I on behalf of this Conference and every member of Garda rank am demanding you, the Minister for Justice, our employer to order an immediate Independent Public inquiry into the recent Public scandals that have emerged regarding our members who have been suspended for years at a time, who have been left out in the cold and prosecuted before the Courts for offences of alleged corruption. All of whom were acquitted on all and every charge before the Courts.
Minister this has stunned Gardai of all ranks and also the General Public alike who are aghast at what has emerged from the Trials. This scandal is more a Disgrace, a witch hunt with no regard to proper Justice. We have raised this with you privately and you have dismissed our request, stating in essence that it is a risk posed to members of An Garda Siochana, that it is the right and proper course to investigate complaints of criminal wrong doing, and subsequently it is due process and the role of the DPP and the Courts to prosecute such cases.
The outcome of which will find our Colleagues either guilty or not guilty. That Minister may well be correct, and we stand behind you and our Commissioner to deal with actual wrong doings. We understand, we appreciate, we respect and we enforce the Laws of our land and the criminal Justice system. However when 9 high profile public cases in recent months are heard before the Courts and all of the members are found not guilty on every charge, after years of suspension which resulted in personal and professional character assassinations, then you cannot claim that this is due process and something is clearly and fundamentally wrong. Something that you as Minister for Justice our employer must, and are duty bound to fix. This Conference will not sit here and listen to an excuse that a Public inquiry will take years and produce little outcome, and an internal investigation is appropriate and sufficient.
We have waited for years to clear our colleagues names, we can wait a little longer. It is now up to you to order an Independent Public inquiry to identify where the system broke down and who was responsible. We have nothing to fear, we have nothing to hide, we are demanding Justice in Practice: Fair Rights, Fair Rates and Fair Treatment. I have every confidence Minister, you and your Department wish to ensure that those responsible for one of the States most embarrassing and cruel scandals which has torn our colleagues and their families lives apart and has sent ripples of fear through so many of our membership is independently examined to establish true responsibility, accountability and Governance going forward to ensure a truly admirable Police Service. Minister we will accept nothing less for our Colleagues.
It is for these reasons Minister that we rightly outlined our concerns and fears of the Conduct & Performance Regulations and our belief that to ensure fair and proper Justice that an employee representative sits on the Appeals Board. This has always reflected the true meaning of Fairness and Justice and now we hope you can see why we need this to be re introduced with immediate effect. Our members suffer more than any other employee of the State from of a lack of fair and timely effective procedures and protections.
The platitudes that are lauded on us from time to time that we are respected and admired and are unique because of our roles in Society, unfortunately no longer lands well with us. We are entitled to the same entitlements as every other worker, In fact I go further than to say we are treated as second class citizens, we are treated as Criminals, and that Minister needs to end now.
To finish, Minister, we asked you to come here today and listen to the concerns of those protecting the public at the coalface… the members here today and every member that they represent to say to you Minister, we want Justice in Practice: Fair Rights, Fair Rates & Fair Treatment’ and we need your government to make our members feel more secure, appreciated and better protected while we continue to protect the public that we are so proud to serve.