Proposals by the Minister for Justice to improve accountability for theGarda will only go some way towards changing the culture of the force,writes Paul O'Mahony
The Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, this week announced a series of measures that will contribute to a new, potentially more effective system of accountability for the Garda Síochána.
The proposals include the long-promised reform of transferring overall responsibility for the policing budget from the Department of Justice to the Garda Commissioner, the publication of annual Garda policing plans, the establishment of a policy and planning forum, and more formal liaison between the Garda Commissioner and local authorities.
These proposals have little direct relevance to the current major crisis of accountability in the Garda Síochána, which is centred mainly on the misuse of police powers and related miscarriages of justice. However, they will have an impact on the more mundane issues of everyday organisational accountability and will create mechanisms for a modicum of democratic input into policy-making.
Preventing illegitimate use of the special powers granted to the police and other agents of the criminal justice system is of cardinal importance, but preventing irresponsible use of power is a much broader matter that also deserves attention. A truly effective system of accountability for the Garda will not only encourage honest, fair, humane and legal conduct in the handling of suspects and evidence, but will also hold decision- and policy-makers accountable for incompetence, waste of resources, inaction, poor judgment, lack of humanity, laziness and all manner of bungling and inadequacy.
Such a system would not only seek value for money but would also go some way towards ensuring that policing policies and priorities reflect the values and concerns of Irish society.
The most immediately significant reform of this current package will make the Garda Commissioner the Accounting Officer for all expenditure on policing in the State. This clearly increases the autonomy of the Commissioner in financial matters but, at the same time, subjects him to the scrutiny of the Public Accounts Committee and the Comptroller and Auditor General. In recent years we have witnessed how this scrutiny can be a very chastening experience for an Accounting Officer. It is a process that certainly enhances the transparency of public spending and, in the long-term, may possibly improve its efficiency.
This financial reform is an important, if relatively minor, step towards redressing the democratic deficit in the management of policing in this country. In the summer of 1995 Commissioner Pat Byrne's predecessor, Patrick Culligan, raised a storm of criticism by his point-blank refusal to attend a joint session of the Dáil Committees on Legislation and Security and the Family to answer questions on the strategy of the Garda Síochána with respect to the drugs crisis. Members of the committees criticised Commissioner Culligan's refusal to appear before them and the then Minister for Justice, Ms Owen, personally and publicly sought his attendance, only to be rebuffed. Commissioner Culligan stated that "appearing before the committee might redefine or regrade the office of the Commissioner". In this way he effectively stymied what could have been a highly productive debate on policing priorities in the area of drug abuse.
Current proposals ensure that, at least in financial matters, there will be no repetition of this unedifying standoff. There are obvious tensions inherent in maintaining a balance between accountability and independence but the job of Garda Commissioner has now been redefined to include a duty to justify expenditure in public to representatives of the people. This process is an essential ingredient in the developing culture of more transparent and accountable strategic management of the criminal justice system.
In recent years, the need for this approach has become urgent because massive expenditures on new technology are now a normal feature of modern policing. The new PULSE system for computerised recording and communication of criminal data and the new radio system have both cost hundreds of millions. These systems have had major teething problems and have significantly overrun their budgets. The public has a right to detailed information on this kind of expenditure. Independent scientific evaluation and monitoring of the effectiveness of such hugely expensive public investments are essential and should be published in their entirety and in a timely fashion.
The other proposals in this package focus mainly on mechanisms for influencing policing policy. Formal consultation with local government in the development of policing plans is to be welcomed but, by and large, these proposals are rather puny and fail to assure us that future Garda policies and priorities will reflect the social consensus, especially in the more disadvantaged and marginalised communities, where there has been long-standing antagonism towards the Garda Síochána.
The catalogue of problems of abuse of power and irresponsibility within the Garda Síochána is dauntingly long and diverse, to mention only a few of the most obvious cases in recent years.
The Abbeylara shooting, and the accidental killing of a garda by shots from another member of the force at a bank robbery in Athy, have raised questions about the use of lethal violence and the training for crisis situations. The overzealous and unnecessarily aggressive response to street protesters in College Green earlier this year raises similar concerns about the Garda culture.
The Dean Lyons false admission case was just one of the most dramatic examples of a long list of irregular interrogations of suspects or mishandling of evidence. In Donegal evidence has been uncovered of a profusion of illegal Garda activity, including the planting of evidence, perjury and malicious harassment of citizens, much of it seemingly aimed at improving the promotional prospects of the officers involved.
The normal defence offered by the Garda - that the various scandals relate only to the inevitable bad apples in the large organisation - is now untenable and it is clear that there is a culture within the Garda Síochána that at least tolerates if not fosters certain kinds of abuse of power, especially those that appear to advance the crime-fighting objectives of the organisation.
The proposals announced this week by the Minister for Justice will not solve the larger crisis of accountability in the Garda Síochána. But the reforms are relevant because they have some potential to impact positively on attitudes and culture within the Garda Síochána.
There is at present a clear lack of effective measures for the education of officers in the responsible use of their powers and for the deterrence of those who might be tempted to take an unethical approach. But the ineffectiveness of the Garda Síochána's response to uncovered instances of wrongful conduct is itself a major problem and betokens a lack of serious concern about accountability at the higher levels in the organisation. The results of internal investigations, such as the Carty inquiry in Donegal, are rarely, if ever, published and such inquiries are widely perceived as a way of burying an issue. To put it in crude terms, heads rarely roll.
Some system of truly independent inquiry into Garda activities, including questions of ethos and general practice as well as individual instances of wrong-doing, is obviously required. Such an inspectorate of the Garda Síochána should have the power of initiation of investigation, total access to evidence and witnesses, the right to impose sanctions and the right to insist on at least the rethinking of policy.
Paul O'Mahony is senior lecturer in psychology at TCD and editor of Criminal Justice in Ireland 2002