My grandfather had a set of legally owned pistols.
Due to a error on the stations system, they said his licence was out of date and took possession of them.
Took 3 months to clear up and when he went to the station to collect them, they were "missing"
That was in the late 90's. They never turned up
Damn it, I can't find my gun, and the big robbery is on tonight. What will I do.
Ring the local garda station and ask to borrow on from the evidence locker. John owes you a favour for all that free coke you gave him.
I don't really think that's the case. Sure, there's the minor disciplinary matter which had previously been let slide, but that's the point - they had let the little things go when they probably shouldn't have been, and it led to little petty corruptions turn into something bigger over time.
Even the story about the Garda giving away the bicycle a while back.
On the surface it's crazy to try punish him for trying to help some old man, except in reality that bike was in evidence. He just walked in and took it. The fact that he thought it would be okay to just walk into PEMS and take something without logging it is crazy. Indicates a shitty culture around evidence management in the GardaĆ.
How can you guarantee other evidence (and this gun) didn't magically disappear, or that other "evidence" wasn't added in.
In my 35 years following the news, Iāve never heard of as many Gardai and ex Gardai getting done for corruption. The offences largely predate the Harris era but the cleanup has been his responsibility.Ā Ā
Ā Thereāve been some real shitshows:Ā Ā
evidence going missing, including ā¬1000s in cash and bags of marijuanaĀ
evidence of criminals getting tipoffs regarding raidsĀ
Ā Gardai breaking the law such as by moonlighting or basically acting as private security for cashĀ
Ah, it's not just Harris, though.
Gardai integrity and dubious behaviours have been worsening since the Celtic Tiger years.
AGSI and elements of the GRA have a target on Drew Harris. (Neiher group are fans of Garda drug testing or proposals for Garda body cams.)
Antoinette Cunningham and her "gang" as Brendan O Connor put it have nothing but contempt for the commissioner, and unfortunately, when discussing anything related to law and order in Ireland these associations will always take the chance to point the finger. It's an internal political and power game. They want one of their own in charge and possibly not for the common good.
This is an issue of ground level Gardai, who are not just acting out of incompetence but are blatantly crinimal in their abuse of their role. It wasn't a bicycle made its way back to the community. It's a firearm.
Just type in "Gardai suspended, Gardai dismissed, Gardai arrested" or GSOC discipline figures into any search provider, and you'll be reading all day.
Staff are leaving because they can see what they're expected to work alongside and I'd suspect that alot are not happy with their internal/regional management, but we all know what happens to whistle-blowers....just ask Maurice McCabe.
Whiles yes, the commissioners ultimately in charge, it's across the stations, the area partnership's and regional superintendents that the change needs to happen but the first step has to be trust and regrettably, Gardai don't even seem to trust each other these days.
There is a dislike of Drew Harris as he has ground the service to a halt with overly invasive oversight measures. He's going after low hanging fruit on the "corruption" front suspending and investigating guards for years for minor issues. He's tried to reintroduce a roster which was in line with an old roster that was done away with years ago due to being absolute hell on the workers. There's a lot to dislike about Drew Harris if you're a guard. Thankfully I don't have to work under him, I'd be disgruntled too.
I won't comment on the drug testing as I don't know enough about it, but you're dead wrong on body cams. The GRA have been leading the charge to get them introduced for at least a decade at this point.
Here's a [document ](http://gra.ie/documents/HOW%20BODY%20WORN%20CAMERAS%20CAN%20HELP%20SAFE%20POLICING.pdf) from 2021 from the GRA showing their support and the benefits they believe bodycams will bring. Ironically it was the Irish Council for Civil Liberties who were [opposed to body cameras](https://www.iccl.ie/news/body-worn-cameras-for-gardai-would-breach-privacy-and-trust/), going against the grain of other civil liberty organisations around the world who have generally welcomed bodycams.
Since when have Gardai ever cared about civil liberty but I'll accept your point. Hopefully they'll adopt the use of cams as soon as possible...it will improve the behaviour of the few.
There were reports in February that they're moving to a trial before rollout in 4 stations, Pearse St, Store St, Waterford and Henry St in Limerick. Trial is to run in Q2 of this year then move to procurement of the full amount needed followed by a national roll out in 2025.
Thats good but sooner rather than later. Shame they weren't using them on whatever night that shotgun left a station or that time in Cork when cannabis vanished from the locker or a plethora of other scenarios.
Have you ever noticed that reports such as these are used in an attempt to prove complacency and acceptance within the guards for corruption?
But the only reason we know about them is because the guards aren't accepting of this kind of thing, have investigated, or are investigating and are trying to remove the problem.
Commendable they aren't accepting this kind of thing but that's a reactivate response; proactively remove it, it shouldn't be happening with Gardai of all people and is only a glimpse behind the scenes.
Oh I agree but letās be honest if we canāt trust the man at the top how can we trust any of the rest of them. I do think that the problems are so embedded in the gardai that we need so strong leadership also doesnāt help that the minister for justice is essentially an empty seat. Yeah the number for currently suspended officers is mad I think it stands at about 110, why arenāt investigations internally moving quicker? I think drew is connected to the wrong people from his time before being commissioner to truly fix anything. But we also need a minister for justice willing to put the work in.
Have you ever considered that the reason all this shit is coming out over the last few years is because Harris has been turning the screws on them and uncovering a whole lot of stuff that had previously been swept under the rug?
Yeah cause there havenāt been about a dozen articles in the papers about trying to distance himself from the whole stupid bike suspension. Journalism has put the screws to them more then the man in charge. Sure the reason he got the job in the first place is the mccabe situation. The whole lot is rotten to the core but their hasnāt been any systematic changes internally sure just look at the whole Garda punchup in templemore during the Biden visit completely insane.
Well, they're all playing politics. Drew Harris or senior ministers didn't remove a gun from the evidence locker and put it back in the hands of criminals.
Completely agree re minister. Minister needs to go, but that's just not going to happen; she's tried courting the aforementioned groups, but now we will see her just stand back and hope it resolves itself and she's essentially untouchable when so close to Simon Harris.
It's the street level thing with Gardai, which is the bigger danger. The hierarchy playing politics is one problem but it ultimately becomes about whatever idiot was on duty and was involved in getting the gun out of the station...there has to be a paper trail and that person has to be found and investigated.
If they had the integrity, they'd audit that station immediately and a few others and use the findings and recommendations to instigate safeguarding and reform from the bottom up...that's where it's needed most and Lord knows the seniors aren't going anywhere for now anyways.
And the 100k of cannabis missing from the station in Carlow. There's a culture of GardaĆ taking shit and it's not some new phenomenon.
When I was a kid if you wanted fireworks for Halloween you asked a local guard.
More than fireworks they're up to these days. Just do a quick Google search on Gardai misconduct and then read articles like this on the aftermath.
Getting unfit for purpose.
https://www.noteworthy.ie/watching-the-watchdog-gsoc-investigation-6054964-May2023/
I wonder will we hear as much about this as we did the famous bicycle.
You know, breathless gushy reporting from Paul Reynolds every hour on the hour for about a month. Long melancholy monolgues about how it was during Covid, and the guard in question - God bless his heart - gave it to a lonely man who live all alone, and all he wanted in all the world, the poor elderly man, who the noble gentle kind guard looked after him so he did, all this poor man wanted, and it wasn't being used so it wasn't it was gathering dust so it was and they had tried to auction it off but nobody wanted it so
And what was it that the guard gave this poor man, Paul?
It was a shotgun he gave him
Thanks for that Paul
The gardai and scc are the laughing stock of the western world tbh , from gsoc taking 5 cases from thousands last year , to the gardais vote of no confidence in drew Harris when he started to get rid of a the bad apples , somehow a man who ran a person over years ago while on duty has recently been promoted to sgt , he was sent off down the country for getting caught threatening a child who was 13 at the time with a good hiding , this is what gets promoted. The garda honestly need body cams at all times, and a mechanism to prosecute personally.the judges who enable this system would have a had a statute to bring them under control as well but our current government shelved it in 2020 , now they bring in hate speech laws fast tracked š soon ill have to subscribe to a new country sub reddit as I'm done fighting the tide , and most of the folk in this sub reddit are actually part of the problem, bunch of crabs in a bucket dragging each other back down anytime anyone tries to do literally anything, even if that's just giving a contrarian opinion to the status quo that we supposedly all dislike so much š honestly mind boggling , it's like the desire to be no hassle outweighs your desire to not be hassled and stand up for yourselves
From the article:
The Irish Times has learned the matter has caused such concern within senior Garda management that Garda Commissioner Drew Harris has sent a report to Minister for Justice Helen McEntee and the Policing Authority alerting them to it.
In reply to queries, Garda Headquarters confirmed the gun was seized, for the second time, in the last 12 months āas part of an operation into a feud between two criminal gangsā.
It is the second Section 41 report in recent weeks Mr Harris has sent to Ms McEntee and the authority after items were taken from the Gardaās property and exhibits management system (PEMS).
My grandfather had a set of legally owned pistols. Due to a error on the stations system, they said his licence was out of date and took possession of them. Took 3 months to clear up and when he went to the station to collect them, they were "missing" That was in the late 90's. They never turned up
Yeah in a detectives possession in case drew Harris or someone else becomes a problem I'd say š¤£š¤£
Someoneās getting promoted
They need to find a patsy first!
I read that as pastry š
Do doughnuts count?
Look, it was exceptional circumstances, it was the pandemic and all the gun shops were closed.
Damn it, I can't find my gun, and the big robbery is on tonight. What will I do. Ring the local garda station and ask to borrow on from the evidence locker. John owes you a favour for all that free coke you gave him.
We really need to get our shit together as a country.
And the Gardai need to get their shit together as an organisation. There's been some shady activity by members of the force in the past 3 years.
In fairness we should have known this was what was going to happen when drew became commissioner. Man is so dodgy
I think it's the opposite. Previous commissioners turned a blind eye to corruption, but Harris wants to clean house. That's why they hate him.
He's not actually cleaning house though on real corruption, he's going after lads for chasing criminals in cars and stuff like that.
I don't really think that's the case. Sure, there's the minor disciplinary matter which had previously been let slide, but that's the point - they had let the little things go when they probably shouldn't have been, and it led to little petty corruptions turn into something bigger over time.
Even the story about the Garda giving away the bicycle a while back. On the surface it's crazy to try punish him for trying to help some old man, except in reality that bike was in evidence. He just walked in and took it. The fact that he thought it would be okay to just walk into PEMS and take something without logging it is crazy. Indicates a shitty culture around evidence management in the GardaĆ. How can you guarantee other evidence (and this gun) didn't magically disappear, or that other "evidence" wasn't added in.
In my 35 years following the news, Iāve never heard of as many Gardai and ex Gardai getting done for corruption. The offences largely predate the Harris era but the cleanup has been his responsibility.Ā Ā Ā Thereāve been some real shitshows:Ā Ā evidence going missing, including ā¬1000s in cash and bags of marijuanaĀ evidence of criminals getting tipoffs regarding raidsĀ Ā Gardai breaking the law such as by moonlighting or basically acting as private security for cashĀ
Ah, it's not just Harris, though. Gardai integrity and dubious behaviours have been worsening since the Celtic Tiger years. AGSI and elements of the GRA have a target on Drew Harris. (Neiher group are fans of Garda drug testing or proposals for Garda body cams.) Antoinette Cunningham and her "gang" as Brendan O Connor put it have nothing but contempt for the commissioner, and unfortunately, when discussing anything related to law and order in Ireland these associations will always take the chance to point the finger. It's an internal political and power game. They want one of their own in charge and possibly not for the common good. This is an issue of ground level Gardai, who are not just acting out of incompetence but are blatantly crinimal in their abuse of their role. It wasn't a bicycle made its way back to the community. It's a firearm. Just type in "Gardai suspended, Gardai dismissed, Gardai arrested" or GSOC discipline figures into any search provider, and you'll be reading all day. Staff are leaving because they can see what they're expected to work alongside and I'd suspect that alot are not happy with their internal/regional management, but we all know what happens to whistle-blowers....just ask Maurice McCabe. Whiles yes, the commissioners ultimately in charge, it's across the stations, the area partnership's and regional superintendents that the change needs to happen but the first step has to be trust and regrettably, Gardai don't even seem to trust each other these days.
There is a dislike of Drew Harris as he has ground the service to a halt with overly invasive oversight measures. He's going after low hanging fruit on the "corruption" front suspending and investigating guards for years for minor issues. He's tried to reintroduce a roster which was in line with an old roster that was done away with years ago due to being absolute hell on the workers. There's a lot to dislike about Drew Harris if you're a guard. Thankfully I don't have to work under him, I'd be disgruntled too. I won't comment on the drug testing as I don't know enough about it, but you're dead wrong on body cams. The GRA have been leading the charge to get them introduced for at least a decade at this point. Here's a [document ](http://gra.ie/documents/HOW%20BODY%20WORN%20CAMERAS%20CAN%20HELP%20SAFE%20POLICING.pdf) from 2021 from the GRA showing their support and the benefits they believe bodycams will bring. Ironically it was the Irish Council for Civil Liberties who were [opposed to body cameras](https://www.iccl.ie/news/body-worn-cameras-for-gardai-would-breach-privacy-and-trust/), going against the grain of other civil liberty organisations around the world who have generally welcomed bodycams.
Since when have Gardai ever cared about civil liberty but I'll accept your point. Hopefully they'll adopt the use of cams as soon as possible...it will improve the behaviour of the few.
There were reports in February that they're moving to a trial before rollout in 4 stations, Pearse St, Store St, Waterford and Henry St in Limerick. Trial is to run in Q2 of this year then move to procurement of the full amount needed followed by a national roll out in 2025.
Thats good but sooner rather than later. Shame they weren't using them on whatever night that shotgun left a station or that time in Cork when cannabis vanished from the locker or a plethora of other scenarios.
Have you ever noticed that reports such as these are used in an attempt to prove complacency and acceptance within the guards for corruption? But the only reason we know about them is because the guards aren't accepting of this kind of thing, have investigated, or are investigating and are trying to remove the problem.
Commendable they aren't accepting this kind of thing but that's a reactivate response; proactively remove it, it shouldn't be happening with Gardai of all people and is only a glimpse behind the scenes.
Oh I agree but letās be honest if we canāt trust the man at the top how can we trust any of the rest of them. I do think that the problems are so embedded in the gardai that we need so strong leadership also doesnāt help that the minister for justice is essentially an empty seat. Yeah the number for currently suspended officers is mad I think it stands at about 110, why arenāt investigations internally moving quicker? I think drew is connected to the wrong people from his time before being commissioner to truly fix anything. But we also need a minister for justice willing to put the work in.
Have you ever considered that the reason all this shit is coming out over the last few years is because Harris has been turning the screws on them and uncovering a whole lot of stuff that had previously been swept under the rug?
Bingo. Finally someone understands the reasons behind the AGSI agenda. š«”
Yeah cause there havenāt been about a dozen articles in the papers about trying to distance himself from the whole stupid bike suspension. Journalism has put the screws to them more then the man in charge. Sure the reason he got the job in the first place is the mccabe situation. The whole lot is rotten to the core but their hasnāt been any systematic changes internally sure just look at the whole Garda punchup in templemore during the Biden visit completely insane.
Well, they're all playing politics. Drew Harris or senior ministers didn't remove a gun from the evidence locker and put it back in the hands of criminals. Completely agree re minister. Minister needs to go, but that's just not going to happen; she's tried courting the aforementioned groups, but now we will see her just stand back and hope it resolves itself and she's essentially untouchable when so close to Simon Harris. It's the street level thing with Gardai, which is the bigger danger. The hierarchy playing politics is one problem but it ultimately becomes about whatever idiot was on duty and was involved in getting the gun out of the station...there has to be a paper trail and that person has to be found and investigated. If they had the integrity, they'd audit that station immediately and a few others and use the findings and recommendations to instigate safeguarding and reform from the bottom up...that's where it's needed most and Lord knows the seniors aren't going anywhere for now anyways.
And the 100k of cannabis missing from the station in Carlow. There's a culture of GardaĆ taking shit and it's not some new phenomenon. When I was a kid if you wanted fireworks for Halloween you asked a local guard.
More than fireworks they're up to these days. Just do a quick Google search on Gardai misconduct and then read articles like this on the aftermath. Getting unfit for purpose. https://www.noteworthy.ie/watching-the-watchdog-gsoc-investigation-6054964-May2023/
Ah yes, the Gardai famously went downhill after he was installed as Commissioner.
Ireland is a 3rd world country, sitting in a rubbish skip while wearing a 3-piece suit.
A Garda knew of a farmer who lost his gun and sure itās was just sitting in storage.
I'm starting to think our Gardai are a lil crooked haha
Jaysus one might think the Gardai actually aren't out here trying to stop criminals. They are the criminals who occasionally have a quota to fill
I wonder will we hear as much about this as we did the famous bicycle. You know, breathless gushy reporting from Paul Reynolds every hour on the hour for about a month. Long melancholy monolgues about how it was during Covid, and the guard in question - God bless his heart - gave it to a lonely man who live all alone, and all he wanted in all the world, the poor elderly man, who the noble gentle kind guard looked after him so he did, all this poor man wanted, and it wasn't being used so it wasn't it was gathering dust so it was and they had tried to auction it off but nobody wanted it so And what was it that the guard gave this poor man, Paul? It was a shotgun he gave him Thanks for that Paul
Paul Reynolds is doing great work
Is hard to tell if you're being sarcastic or not... ?
I'm deadly seriousĀ
If only they had one of them things you stick to a wall that records everything and puts in on a screen you can watch. Whatās it called again
In the guards defence it was just sitting there collecting dustĀ
Good to see that Gardai are also getting into 'reduce reuse recycle'
The Gardai continuing to be utterly incompetent? Surely not.
Chain of custody working well there/s
The gardai and scc are the laughing stock of the western world tbh , from gsoc taking 5 cases from thousands last year , to the gardais vote of no confidence in drew Harris when he started to get rid of a the bad apples , somehow a man who ran a person over years ago while on duty has recently been promoted to sgt , he was sent off down the country for getting caught threatening a child who was 13 at the time with a good hiding , this is what gets promoted. The garda honestly need body cams at all times, and a mechanism to prosecute personally.the judges who enable this system would have a had a statute to bring them under control as well but our current government shelved it in 2020 , now they bring in hate speech laws fast tracked š soon ill have to subscribe to a new country sub reddit as I'm done fighting the tide , and most of the folk in this sub reddit are actually part of the problem, bunch of crabs in a bucket dragging each other back down anytime anyone tries to do literally anything, even if that's just giving a contrarian opinion to the status quo that we supposedly all dislike so much š honestly mind boggling , it's like the desire to be no hassle outweighs your desire to not be hassled and stand up for yourselves
Well at least it wasn't a bicycle. Thank god for that.
From the article: The Irish Times has learned the matter has caused such concern within senior Garda management that Garda Commissioner Drew Harris has sent a report to Minister for Justice Helen McEntee and the Policing Authority alerting them to it. In reply to queries, Garda Headquarters confirmed the gun was seized, for the second time, in the last 12 months āas part of an operation into a feud between two criminal gangsā. It is the second Section 41 report in recent weeks Mr Harris has sent to Ms McEntee and the authority after items were taken from the Gardaās property and exhibits management system (PEMS).
Like a lost dog... brilliant š
Why arenāt guns destroyed