New Irish justice minister Frances
Fitzgerald has got her first feel for our boys in blue, our erstwhile Gardai.
In two words it amounts to ‘Get lost.’ They, as if they have the power to do
so, or maybe they do, have rejected her first reforms. When I say ‘they’ I mean
the middle ranks of this particular food chain that call themselves laughably,
The Association Of Garda Sergeants And Inspectors, and is no laughing matter
that they are better organized than any dodgy plumbers union. What is their
beef this time?
Well, they really want to go on as
before, answerable to everyone and accountable to no one, and that certainly
includes any whistleblowers otherwise called rats by the yet to be more en-lightened
Gardai who are more likely to have a brown envelope in one pocket and a
frame-up kit in the other. This also means, not surprisingly, that they do not
want the whistleblowers to go to the Garda Ombudsman Commission.
Their general secretary, John
Redmond was more blunt when he said he “seriously doubted” if his members would
‘turn’ whistle-blower and go to report their concerns to GSOC, the very agency
established to investigate complaints against them and their Garda colleagues.
There is more to that word ‘turn’ than maybe meets the eye at first glance.
They put it all down to their
concerns regarding the protection of the whistleblowers and said that the office
of GSOC might have been bugged and
therefore it was not safe. They of course failed to mention the
suspicion that it was the Gardai who did the bugging in the first place.
Kicking and screaming I am afraid it will be to the
bitter end on this one by the Sergeants and Inspectors.
As they squirm, more
sewage keeps coming down the pipeline about the Gardai that is threatening to
turn this body into one of the most polluted in Ireland, aside of course from the Fr Trendy
priests who thought that they had the direct line to God. The line to Enda Kenny though keeps getting blocked of late, even as he has us believe that he is easily
found and contactable. That is if you can ever contact him; an Irish
conundrum this one.
So the beatings of children in
cells will go on in the meantime; drunken driving cops will get protection as before;
the whistleblowers will still get blown away; money will disappear from Garda station safes; penalty points will only be given to the connected, and the unusual suspects will be fitted up as
usual.
I just can’t wait for part three of
the whistleblowers saga that is already been written as I write.
By Barry Clifford
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