Members of An Garda Síochána have "a duty" to speak out if they believe they see wrongdoing in the organisation, Garda Commissioner Nóirín O'Sullivan has said.
In a rare public interview, at the Kennedy Summer School in New Ross, Co Wexford on Friday night, Ms O'Sullivan said she had communicated with all members of the force and urged them to speak out. "We have to encourage people to have the confidence to speak out if they see something . . . that they're not sure about," she said.
Asked by barrister and Irish Times columnist Noel Whelan about the perception that the force had a defensive culture and lacked transparency, Ms O'Sullivan said culture was an "easy accusation" but that there were "many things" about the force that needed to change.
“Yes, there are things about our culture that need to change, but there are other cultures that have to change,” she said.
She said the force was a microcosm of the society it served, “with all its strengths and weaknesses,” adding: “We have to learn to listen in a different way. We have to learn not to shirk criticism.”
Interfere with policing
On whether she was fearful of a “blue flu” among gardaí over pay, the commissioner said she was “always worried about anything that would interfere with policing.”
She said significant investment was taking place in updating stations and facilities, but that “the only issue left was pay” and that there were mechanisms through which that could be addressed.
Recalling her appointment as interim commissioner after the sudden retirement of her predecessor Martin Callinan in 2014, Ms O'Sullivan said she was "catapulted suddenly into the limelight" and found herself having to engage in intensive "crisis management".
Asked if she encountered internal resistance after Mr Callinan’s departure, she said: “People deal with things like that in very different ways. A lot of people were shocked. A lot of people were disappointed. Initially, a lot of people were fearful. For me the job was to steady the ship – to let people vent, to let people grieve. And then to get on with it.”
With a general sense that the job of commissioner would go to “anyone but an insider”, she considered not applying for the post when it was advertised internationally. She acknowledged that her time as interim commissioner was “a difficult period” and that it was challenging to lead the force when her colleagues knew there was a possibility that she would not be in the post for long.
“People are saying, why should we follow this woman, this person, because in six or nine months she might be gone.”
Domestic terrorism
Ms O’Sullivan defended the non-jury Special Criminal Court, saying it had “served the State well” and had “allowed us to do a number of things.”
Domestic terrorism had not “gone away” while the global threat of terrorism was also to be considered. “I think the Special Criminal Court is a very important part of the infrastructure of the State,” she added.
In a separate address to the summer school, Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald said her priority in Brexit negotiations would be to prevent it "unravelling the things that underpinned the Good Friday Agreement".
“Brexit must not interfere with the complex mosaic of relationships between the peoples of this island and the compromises that everyone had to accept to deal with those relationships,” she said. “I accept Brexit means Brexit, but so does peace mean peace.
“And I can assure you that in approaching the issues surrounding Brexit, the Government in which I serve will have no greater priority than nurturing and maintaining the hard-won peace on this island.”
Remarking in her address that "creeping anti-globalisation" was gaining traction, Ms Fitzgerald said Ireland was "open to the world" and made no apologies for that. "We will vigorously defend the integrity of our tax system and our sovereign rights related to that system to ensure Ireland remains open to the world," she said.
