Gardaí members are increasingly going rogue from cocaine sniffing superintendents to senior officers as well as rank and file members engaging in drug trafficking and other criminal activities. The latest incident involves the abandonment of a Garda car at Dublin Airport. Waterford Gardaí members took an unmarked Garda car on an unauthorised trip to the airport where they abandoned it before heading off to Spain for a holiday. They may find it hot in Spain but they will find it even hotter on their return as an internal enquiry is under way. The car in question was attached to a specialist unit in the Waterford Garda division before their holiday bound members abandoned it.
Internal Investigation
Eventually airport police raised the alarm about the presence of a suspect vehicle in the airport vicinity. On the identification of its ownership the Garda authorities were notified. Red faced Gardaí were then deployed to recover the offending car. An immediate internal investigation was launched with heated communications taking place between Garda HQ in the Phoenix Park and Waterford. Garda headquarters have since declined to make any comment on the matter.
Criminality in the Gardaí
In recent years a steadily increasing number of Garda members have been placed under investigation for both disciplinary and criminal activities. We all remember the famous case of the cooking of the books in the breathalyser instant where more breathalyser tests were recorded than they had breathalysers for. That was an endemic expression of widespread institutionalised corruption in the force. But that is only small fry. Despite Garda Commissioner Drew Harris pledging his commitment to root out disciplinary misbehaviour, corruption and criminality within the force, the problem continues at a rapidly accelerating rate.
The Rossport Gardaí Fiasco
However when an organisation experiences an unprecedented increase in disciplinary problems and even criminality it invariably starts at the top and trickles down through the ranks. The fact that the force have been regularly hired out in a private security capacity and placed under external direction does not sit well with the members. They were hired out to a multinational corporation leading to disgraceful bullyboy activity at the Rossport Gas terminal against the Shell to Sea protesters in their fight against the criminal invasion of their property for the placement of a pressurised gas pipe through it. This ‘muscle for hire’ abuse of the force opens the door to cynicism and a disciplinary breakdown. The delivery of crates of alcoholic beverages to a Mayo Garda Station, at Christmas, for their services at Rossport didn’t help. The Rossport protestors who had been abused and jailed were justifiably outraged.
An Open Invitation to Corruption
The hiring out of the force to private interests looks to many in the force as an open invitation to engage in corruption. Gardaí at every level see themselves being hired out like a private security agency while still retaining and abusing Gardaí authority in a corrupt misuse of their authority by HQ.
Turning a Blind Eye to Migrant Criminality
Also the fact that the Gardaí have been ordered from on high to turn a blind eye to migrant street fighting, criminal activity, unprovoked attacks on people, sexual assaults and even rape leads to widespread cynicism and disciplinary problems. They see the Commissioner as talking out of both sides of his mouth, on the one hand pledging to clean up disciplinary problems while on the other hand ordering the Gardaí to ignore and even break the law in their dealing with migrant misdeeds and criminality.
Government Corruption
Of course this problem is being created by the Department of Justice in their exercise of an ill advised exercise of Government policy. It is coming to the point where law abiding people could soon be charged with ‘turf trafficking’, Drew Harris is merely following Government orders or directives. Corruption in this instance is a government brewed poison leaking down from the very top of Government and is contaminating the Garda force at every level. The Government is undoubted the primary source of Garda corruption.