New bill will leave the Garda in 19th century

The Garda Síochána Bill will leave the Garda as the only police force in these islands that is directly under the authority of an elected politician and his colleagues in Cabinet, writes Conor Brady

By the middle of February, the specialised anti-crime units of the Garda Síochána had amassed evidence of Sinn Féin/IRA involvement in crime and money-laundering. This information was now sufficient to enable them to launch a series of co-ordinated raids on suspects across the State.

When National Bureau of Crime Investigation officers, with local detectives, moved in on their targets, they found large sums of money, including sterling notes that may have come from the December robbery of the Northern Bank in Belfast. Key suspects along the provisional money trail were identified and linked through a network of connected companies.

Arrests were made, although in each instance, those taken into custody have been released without charge. Files are currently being prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions. Meanwhile, gardaí are studying large volumes of documents and computer-based records seized in the raids.

This is how the Government tells it.

Sinn Féin tell it differently. Well, they would, wouldn't they?

They say that their party has been blackened for electoral purposes. They have been targeted by "securocrats." The garda raids on their members, they claim, are part of an attempt to damage their reputation.

Sinn Féin says the major parties are afraid of their electoral success – initially in the forthcoming by-elections but also in the next general election in the Republic. And there is a common objective among the "conservative" parties, North, South and in the UK, of preventing Sinn Féin from making further gains in the Westminster elections, probably due in May.

In the Sinn Féin version of events, the Garda Síochána is a mere tool of political expediency. Its hand is stayed by Government until it suits the political agenda to do otherwise. Then, with the say-so of the parties in power, the police machine moves into action against those who threaten the established political order.

Presented with these alternative analyses, most people will reject the Sinn Féin/IRA spiel. The facts of IRA criminality speak for themselves. They did not start or end with the Northern Bank robbery or the murder of Robert McCartney. And it is a very good thing – to put it mildly – that the Garda keeps firm tabs on Sinn Féin.

Reports of IRA money being laundered through public houses and property deals have been with us for many years. It is half a decade since The Sunday Times alleged the existence of smuggling and diesel-laundering rackets on a grand scale in the South Armagh-Louth area. The proceeds of other IRA robberies in both jurisdictions have been passed down and tracked over several years.

Yet there was no police operation on the scale of what we saw last month during the negotiations about the restoration of the suspended institutions over the past two years. Was that because the Garda did not feel they had sufficient evidence to move? Or was it because the political climate was too delicate to risk it?

There are serious issues here. The independence of the police from those in political power is a central tenet of democratic government. In the Common Law tradition, the police are an instrument of the law. They are not simply an extension of the executive, like the defence forces.

The Garda takes its policy brief from the Government. But the Commissioner has operational autonomy. When Gerry Adams made his gibe at Bertie Ahern, daring him to arrest him, the Taoiseach properly retorted that he had no authority to order the arrest of anyone.

This does not mean that the Garda must act without reference to the political will or the legitimate political priorities determined by those in Government. The Garda is an instrument of the law. But it is also a State service. It is the physical, tangible, expression of the State's authority; an authority that is given effect, if necessary, by legal force.

But where does the Garda's role as an arm of Government end and where does operational autonomy begin? How are we to know when the Garda is acting as a non-political police service for all the community or where it is simply responding to stimuli from the parties in power?

Ireland is not the only common-law jurisdiction that has to grapple with this question. But it is the only jurisdiction in these islands that refuses to put any safety measures in place to isolate the police from possible political manipulation.

Every police force in England, Wales and Scotland has some form of a police board or authority that acts as a cordon sanitaire against the influence of central government. The solitary exception since its foundation – the London Metropolitan Police – was brought under the jurisdiction of a police authority in 2000. It was thus taken out from under the direct control of the Home Secretary.

The Belfast Agreement provides for the establishment of a Police Board for Northern Ireland(PSNI) to which the Chief Constable of the PSNI reports. In addition, the Agreement led to the creation of a powerful Police Ombudsman's office, headed at present by Nuala O'Loan.

The Agreement required the Irish Government to put into place a number of policing measures within the Republic in order to mirror what was happening in the North. Hence, the Government brought forward the Garda Síochána Bill 2005 (previously the Garda Síochána Bill 2004 and before that the Garda Síochána Bill 2003).

Michael McDowell has described the Bill as the most significant reform of policing since the foundation of the State. It provides for an Ombudsman to investigate complaints against the Garda – although it will not have the full powers or role of the Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman. It facilitates the establishment of a "Garda Reserve" – a sort of volunteer constabulary, following the models in use throughout the UK. It provides for exchanges of personnel between the Garda Síochána and the PSNI and enables senior officers in either force to apply for vacancies in the other. It also provides for the establishment on a statutory basis of consultative links between local Garda management and local authorities.

The one thing it does not do, however, is to dilute the political control of central government over the Garda Síochána.

There is to be no equivalent of the Northern Ireland Police Board or of the "police authorities" that guard the operational independence of police services throughout England, Scotland and Wales. The result is that the Garda Síochána is left as the only police force in these islands that is directly under the authority of an elected politician and his colleagues in Cabinet.

This is a model of policing that is unchanged since the foundation of the Irish Constabulary, under Chief Secretary Drummond, in 1822. The Irish Constabulary – later the Royal Irish Constabulary – was run on a day-to-day basis by the Inspector-General (equivalent to today's Commissioner) who reported initially to the Permanent Under Secretary (the Secretary General of the Department of Justice) who, in turn, was answerable to the Chief Secretary (the Minister.) This model of police administration was ideally suited to an era of colonial-style government. And indeed it was exported from Ireland, often with Irish personnel, to all corners of the British Empire. But it should not be acceptable in a 21st-century democracy that commits itself to the highest standards of transparency and accountability.

It is not as if the record of relations between Ministers and the Garda is unblemished. The best-documented abuse occurred when gardaí were ordered to monitor the communications of political journalists by the Minister for Justice, Sean Doherty.

The current Minister, Michael McDowell, has rejected arguments in favour of the establishment of a Garda authority. These have come from some Opposition spokespersons, from civil rights groups and from the Commission on Human Rights.

A police authority would not be appropriate here, he argues, because the Garda Síochána is a national, unified force. It is also the national security service and the Commissioner is the head of State security. As such, Michael McDowell says, the model of direct accountability to a Minister is more appropriate. These arguments are short on substance and consistency when measured against practice elsewhere.

The London Metropolitan Police serves the policing needs of more than 12 million people – three times the population of this State. The Commissioner of the Metropolitan is also the senior security figure within his area of remit. He is the principal officer in combating threats from terrorist and subversive groups.

Yet the Metropolitan Police Authority, established five years ago, does not appear to have subverted the Commissioner's role or functions. It has not cut across his proper relationship with the Home Secretary or the government.

But what it has done is to provide the community and the government with a police service that is more accountable, that is more in tune with community needs and that is visibly beyond the manipulation of people in positions of political power. Why is it that the "most significant reform" in the history of the State is going to leave such a glaring gap between this jurisdiction and its neighbours in police accountability and transparency?

It can only be assumed that either the politicians or the civil servants, or both, want to keep the Garda Síochána under their undiluted control and influence. That is bad for democracy, bad for the community and ultimately bad for the Garda.

Ironically, an earlier Irish Government agreed to the establishment of a Garda Authority. In 1974, as part of the Sunningdale Agreement, both the RUC and the Garda Síochána were to be answerable to police authorities, representative of the community rather than to ministers. But with the collapse of the Sunningdale arrangements, that opportunity for this jurisdiction was lost to history.

The Garda Síochána Bill 2005 will shortly pass into law. In many respects it will make for a better police service. But in terms of transparency it will leave the Garda Síochána firmly lodged in the thinking of the 19th century.