Shatter warns Garda over dangers of racial profiling

Minister for Justice Alan Shatter has warned Garda superintendents not to "jump to conclusions" about people on the basis of racial profiling and urged them to stop "leaking" to the media about unfolding cases.

However, the Minister declined to substantively answer questions about the resignation of former Garda commissioner Martin Callinan at an event in Naas yesterday and walked away when it was suggested he had leaked information on Mick Wallace TD's interaction with gardaí.

Addressing delegates at the annual conference of the Association of Garda Superintendents in Naas, Co Kildare, Mr Shatter warned officers that the face of Ireland was changing and the Garda force needed to avoid making racially based assumptions they would not make about Irish people.

Mr Shatter said: “Just short of 70,000 individuals had acquired Irish citizenship in the context of the many citizenship ceremonies” that have been held. “That’s a very large number for a very small country,” he told the superintendents.

“And we need to ensure that members of the force understand the background and cultures of the many people who now are minorities within our country, who come from other lands and other backgrounds. We need to be very careful in these areas .” He said European research, relating to police work, had identified racial profiling as a concern.

Background culture
"[There] is a concern that because on occasions members of police forces, be it in Ireland or elsewhere, don't understand the background culture of some individuals [and] don't quite understand the difficulties they may have had in having relationships with police forces in their home countries, that conclusions are reached about issues that may not be accurate. And on occasions people . . . adapt stereotypical images of individuals from minority communities [and] don't always engage in a manner that's appropriate. And indeed on occasions [they] would jump to conclusions that the basic factual background would not warrant them jumping to had they been dealing with individuals who perhaps were born in Ireland and whose families had been in Ireland going back many generations.

'Issues of concern'
"So these are issues of concern also to ensure that we deal with these areas correctly."

While Mr Shatter did not cite any specific case in his address, the most recent controversial case between gardaí and members of an ethnic minority occurred last year when Roma children were taken from their homes and briefly placed in care ostensibly because they had a lighter complexion than other family members and until DNA tests proved their parentage.

On the issue of gardaí engaging with journalists, Mr Shatter said detail about cases that should find its way into a courtroom when criminals were being prosecuted was finding its way into the media instead. “I don’t know what can be done, but it is important that this information should emerge in the courts system and not through the media,” he said.

However, when speaking to journalists after his address he walked away from them when it was put to him he had effectively leaked information, live on television, to the public about Mick Wallace TD being informally spoken to by gardaí about using a phone when driving.

When asked if he was in favour of the retirement of Mr Callinan being probed within a fast-track eight-week period by the Commission of Investigation established by Government, Mr Shatter was non-committal, saying any suggestions would be considered.

Mr Shatter however confirmed he had called the former Garda Commissioner Mr Callinan to wish him well in his retirement and he hoped there was no bad blood between them, saying he had a distinguished record in leading the force.