THE Garda Commissioner and the main organisation representing rank-and-file gardai have disagreed over the significance of a court ruling that gardai must identify informers to senior officers.
A spokesman for the Garda Commissioner said yesterday's High Court judgment did no more than affirm the existing right of the commissioner to be told the names of informants in certain circumstances. He said the public should be reassured that any information given in confidence to a garda would remain confidential.
The Garda Representative Association (GRA) said yesterday's ruling would "make the acquisition of information and the gathering of intelligence more difficult".
Yesterday's ruling concerned two detectives who raided a Dublin hotel and the home of one of its employees in 1988 looking for drugs. None were found, and the owner of the hotel complained that someone had maliciously given false information to the two gardai
The court said the commissioner was right to insist that he or a senior officer acting on his behalf be told the name of the informant who prompted the raids The two detectives had resisted naming the informant.
The GRA said the public would be less inclined to give gardai confidential information following the judgment. "We would see it as being very significant. We supported those two members in the case and we're extremely disappointed with the judgment," said the GRA's deputy general secretary, Mr P.J. Stone.
"It will have implications - and the Commissioner will not want that to be said - but I do believe it will make the acquisition of information and the gathering of intelligence more difficult," he said. "I don't believe it's a good judgment for policing."
Mr Stone said he understood the Commissioner's need to show he was in command of his officers, but ordering disclosure of informants' names would make a garda's job more difficult.
"He's made his management point about being all-powerful and now he should rescind the order requiring disclosure," he said. He added that the GRA, which had funded the action by the two detectives, was not considering appealing the High Court decision.
"We said to the judge that we would abide by his judgment, and there's not much point in running into the Supreme Court complaining about it. We'll have to live with it," he said.