HE IS a brave man but one who eschews that tag. Yet he makes depressing listening. His blunt messages have undoubtedly caused ripples where ripples were not welcomed, but he has continued to deliver them in a no nonsense fashion.
The State Solicitor in Cork says it straight. "The drugs are pouring into Ireland . . . and little is being done about it."
Disarmingly, he likes to ask the interviewer questions. "How many Customs officials do you think are working on drugs smuggling along the Cork Kerry border?"
Thirty? "No," and he holds up two fingers.
In his direct experience, Mr Galvin can speak about millionaire drug smugglers, known to the Garda and the Revenue Commissioners, who have been untouched for years.
Why? Because, he believes there is not enough determination to do something about drugs and because those overseeing the various agencies, including the Garda, the Revenue Commissioners and the Customs, have tried to pretend that the problem is not as serious as it really is.
The Naval Service, he adds could and should have a massive role to play. But its attention has been turned elsewhere towards fishery patrolling.
At a recent conference in Dublin on crime, Mr Galvin was perhaps at his most forceful.
In a well publicised lecture he said that the Customs and Excise branch of the Revenue Commissioners had the responsibility of enforcing the law in relation to smuggling but had abjectly failed to do so.
He went on "I am aware that there was persistent and increasing pressure from front line officers with constant detailed reports identifying the persons responsible [for drug smuggling]."
Mr Galvin confided "I have a good idea where these reports ended up add all I can say is that the person or persons who suppressed these reports or, at the very least failed to ensure they were acted upon, carry a huge burden of blame and responsibility."
He insists that Ireland is an eminently policeable state because of its size, but that the escalation of the drugs problem here is disproportionate to the population and social fabric of the country.
There is only one conclusion to be drawn, he adds. It is that Ireland is a major drugs transshipment centre and that this is because we are either unwilling or unable to police our relatively small island, particularly the coastline.
He is sure, he says, that if the Garda, the Naval Service, the Customs and the Revenue Commissioners acted according to their separate duties, we could beat the drug barons.
He says the Government has made it clear that it wants to do so, but adds that he is mystified as to why the other agencies working beneath and to the legislators have not been prompted into action.
A motorcycle buff who spends most of his time acting as a legal consultant to the AIB Bank, and as State Solicitor, Barry Galvin has been catapulted into the unwanted role of the Republic's most outspoken critic of drug abuse and the system's failure to deal with it.
The 52 year old father of three, oddly, began his legal career at the Bar in 1966, and then became a solicitor three years later.
He moved from the top of the ladder as one of Cork's most promising barristers to be a solicitor's apprentice.
In his Bar examinations, he had come first in Ireland and later won the respected Brookes prize. But becoming a solicitor "was something I just wanted to do".
His early years as a solicitor were dominated by work on the Free Legal Aid panel. But in those days drink, not drugs, was the problem.
Now a senior partner in one of the top six law firms in Cork, Mr Galvin changed sides from a defence lawyer to a State solicitor. He had become disillusioned with his role as the defender of people, some of whom he was convinced were guilty.
Colleagues say he was an expert barrister who handled a brief brilliantly and who had more successes than failures.
That may have been the problem, because the defining moment came when he defended a gang of thieves who robbed a business premises in Cork but who got away with the crime.
On the way home from the trial on the train, Mr Galvin, the robbers and the people who were robbed and later went out of business shared a carriage.
The despondent victims of the crime were not celebrating but the thieves were, and they were buying drinks at the bar.
Because of Mr Galvin's prowess as a defence lawyer, the trial had collapsed and the gang was handed back the cash proceeds of the robbery. He decided there and then that he had had enough.
In June 1983, the State Solicitor position in Cork became vacant and Mr Galvin applied for the job. He got it, although at the time he had no inkling where it might lead.
Certainly there was no drug problem to speak of in those days. Even during his many years as a defence lawyer, the only drug related case he had dealt with concerned a hippie who had been found in possession of one cannabis reefer in a Cork seaside resort. No one knew then what was to come.
Mr Galvin says that he went into the job believing it would take up about 25 per cent of his time.
His father and grandfather had been in the legal profession before him, and he had promised his father, Paddy, when he was ill in a Dublin hospital, that he would follow suit.
His father recovered, and they practised together happily until Mr Galvin snr died in 1982. The firm, which bears the Galvin name, now has five partners and a staff of 19.
A cigar smoker whose office bears reminders of his days as a champion motorcycle racer, Mr Galvin skirts the issue of security but does admit to a concern for his personal safety. He concedes that he is "security conscious."
Every serious crime that occurs in Cork comes across his desk in the form of paperwork. He realises that he is popularly perceived as the nemesis of the drug barons, but points out that the bulk of his work has nothing to do with the fight against drugs.
Nevertheless he, and he alone, has told it like it is about Ireland's growing drug problem, and has done so in a city which has taken to resolving its drugs disputes with guns.