Queries to Garda press office delayed and unanswered
In January 2005 Village submitted questions about 11 unaccompanied minors who had gone missing and were on the missing persons list. The questions were unanswered for several months. Village contacted the Superintendent of the Press Office, Kevin Donohoe, and he said he would look into the delay. In August Village received a reply, which said, "the level of detail you have sought is way beyond what An Garda Síochána is prepared to divulge to unrelated third parties". The details Village had asked for on the 11 missing children were: whose care were they under when they went missing; what schools they attended; their family situation here; how long they had been in Ireland; what investigation was undertaken when they went missing, and any outcome from this. We also requested to talk to the relevant gardaí handling the cases. (In the original query we had other questions relating to missing children in general, but when Kevin Donohoe was contacted we had narrowed the queries down to the 11 non-national missing children.)
On the 6 July Village asked a question about two people who had died after being in Garda custody. We received an answer clarifying the issue with regards to one of them, but nothing in connection to the second. We have still heard nothing despite several queries to Kevin Donohoe about it since.
In August Village submitted questions about an initiative to recruit more members from ethnic minorities to the force. We never heard anything back. Also in October Village submitted questions about traffic disruption in relation to the marathon. Nothing came back.
On 21 November, Village submitted questions regarding Garda operations for drugs, gun related activity and gangs in the past five years. Village added "if this is not possible could someone give me a call about it and I could narrow the timeframe and questions". Kevin Donohoe responded: "Hundreds of operations of many kinds have been undertaken by An Garda Síochána in the last five years to tackle all types of criminality. The effort required by my officers to compile a list for your purposes would be disproportionate to the benefits and would be a considerable waste of public time and money. If you have specific queries or requests for information this office will do its utmost to respond, but I don't propose to engage valuable police time in responding to 'trawling' requests."
In another incident, Village submitted questions relating to the Garda investigation into the death of Mary Reid. When the press office did not come back to us in the deadline time we had given, Village rang the relevant local Garda station directly to ask the Inspector for a comment. Subsequently Kevin Donohoe sent the following email "It was disappointing for me to learn that you contacted Letterkenny directly recently (5 August) regarding these queries, when I had already indicated to you that an appropriate response would issue from this office. This double approach doesn't auger well for the future relationship between your publication and this office/An Garda Síochána."
Since becoming the head of the Garda Press Office in 2004, Donohoe has had run-ins with other media as well. After the Sunday Independent published a piece by Jim Cusack criticising the press releases from the Garda Press Office, Kevin Donohoe apparently sent a memo to the Evening Herald saying that all journalists associated with Independent News and Media titles were removed from their press list.
Emma Browne