Garda Rank and Vile ( Sunday World )

SoapMcTavish

Garda Rank and Vile

After five years on the front line Garda Niall O'Connor quit the job he loved last week...here he explains why and gives us a unique insight into a force that's at rock bottom and is close to collapse

In 2007 Cork journalist NIALL O'CONNOR joined the Garda Siochana, dreaming of a good career and of making a difference on the streets. But after five years facing down gangland criminals and dealing with the scum of society as well as its most tragic victims, he quit the job he loved in despair last week.
Here, he paints a chilling picture of a force on the brink of collapse under the weight of Government cuts and issues a warning to Justice Minister Alan Shatter to act before it is too late to save a police force in crisis.

PRIDE: But Niall O’Connor became disillusioned



I DODGED a sword attack from a crazed drunk father who threatened to kill his children. I ran into a burning building to try and save a trapped teenager from the deadly flames that threatened her life, while another occupant lay dying, impaled on the railings outside. I performed CPR for 30 minutes on the body of a dead son as his family knelt beside me, sobbing and praying that God would save his life. I crawled underneath a van to see if there was any sign of life from the mutilated body of a drunken student who was trapped under the front axle.
I convinced people, overwhelmed with the horror of depression, to step back from the brink of suicide as they stood on bridges and quaysides.
Brutal


SOBERING: At a fatal shooting



I chased robbers and attackers in the brutal, failed housing projects of Limerick. I went toe to toe with the late-night, cocaine and drink-fuelled fighters outside fast food joints and pubs on the streets of one of Ireland's busiest cities. I rejoiced with parents when I broke the good news to them as missing kids were found safe and well, and fought back bitter tears when I told other families that their loved one was dead and would never come home. I will never forget the sense of achievement after catching a burglar who stole from a house as a family slept upstairs. That night he had committed five other burglaries and was nearing home when he met me and another garda as we patrolled at 5.30 in the morning.
I took children into care from homes where maggots infested the kitchen sink. Infants doused in their own vomit and faeces, gaunt and thin from malnutrition, their junkie parents obsessed only with their next fix. I felt deep sadness for a little boy who watched his own mother cut her wrists in front of him. He cried and screamed "I love you mammy" as I walked him to the patrol van and took him to a better home.
I stared down and hassled drug kingpins and crime lords, pathetic men, who ordered the killings of innocent men such as Shane
Geoghegan and Roy Collins. Often they told me that they would kill my family, rape any girlfriend I had and burn down my house.
I caught drug dealers and thieves, wrestled with a junkie in the seconds after he attacked an 80-year-old great grandmother outside a shoe shop on a thronged street.
I was a police man. A Garda stationed in Henry Street in Limerick city.
Slashed


BRAVE: A garda is injured by a projectile



But last week I walked away from the job, sick and tired of being treated like my colleagues and I are the problem. My wages had been slashed and work place conditions reduced to managers playing political games in the hope that they would advance through the ranks. All the while the bar-room scourges and radio show callers told my colleagues and I that we "were lucky to have a job".
Lucky? It was a regular occurrence to arrive for the start of my shift and not even have a patrol car to police one of the country's busiest and most dangerous districts. Worse still, gardaí in nearby rural districts were told not to go out on patrol, just so they could save petrol.
Inside their stations the bean counters ruled, while outside farmers were terrorised by gangs of marauding burglars. I was filled with anger when I saw well-known criminals laugh as we passed by them in a clapped-out Ford Focus, rattling and wheezing as it neared 300,000 kilometres.
I felt the sting of revulsion as local hoods boasted how they signed the dole and claimed extra disability payments for their vicious feral children on the basis that they were suffering from ADHD. Extra cash to pay for flatscreen televisions, playstations and holidays to Costa Del crime hang outs.
Burnt out and uncared for, young gardaí watch as criminals live the high life while they go home after their shift to families struggling to meet the normal expenses of everyday life.
Unarmed


LINE OF FIRE: Riot cops face violent thugs


I joined An Garda Siochana in 2007 after working in journalism for a number of years - full of enthusiasm, pride and a belief that I was going to achieve something other than make money for newspaper moguls. But I learned quickly that the brutal reality was that I was in a job that no-one cared for, a job for which there is little funding and even less respect for those who do its donkey work. In the guards, unarmed uniformed regular cops are nicknamed "mules", because they do everything and carry the weight of the force on their shoulders. They are the men and women who respond to the 999 calls, who are first on scene to calls ranging in seriousness from a missing dog to a gangland murder.
Well those shoulders are shuddering under the weight of a job, that they feel, hates them. Even in a climate of austerity, it is an absurdity to think that the last organisation to be treated appropriately is the one which employs the people who defend our streets from those who live in its darker corners.
As you read this, gardaí are dealing with all the things that you never want to see. They are called out to sudden deaths, thefts, violent and bloody domestics, suicides and children brutalised and turned feral by their parents who live a life devoid of the civil norms of society.

JUSTICE MINISTER: "Alan Shatter is just another barrister who has made money from a failed justice system"



I watched news reports from this year's Garda Representative Association Conference when Minister for Justice Alan Shatter stood up and said that there was "every reason for morale to be high" in An Garda Siochana. Gardaí in my station took this as a direct insult, a "let them eat cake" moment by a barrister who has made money by participating in a failed judicial system. I have sat in court and saw notorious criminals walk free on suspended sentences. Their solicitors telling judges that they suffer from drugs and drink problems that caused them to commit their crimes. The man who attacked me with the sword received a nine-month suspended jail term, his solicitor arguing that his client attacked the garda and his own kids because he couldn't handle the drink.
Solicitors are allowed, with impunity, to ask for adjournments so that quasi probation reports can be obtained and no-one questions the expenses. The accused was, more often than not, caught red handed. Why should his solicitor string out the process to make more and more money from the Legal Aid system? The simple answer is that the legal system is weighted in favour of the criminal.
The thief I caught for five burglaries pleaded guilty in court and, because he was under the age of 17, he got just four months in a young offenders institute. He was back out a few weeks later, straight in to a rampage of burglaries across Limerick city and county.
I know this because I identified him through CCTV images for detectives in Roxboro Road Garda Station as they investigated burglaries in the rural areas of their patch.
The Temporary Release system is a joke, a great insult to all the victims of crime. Prisons are releasing hardened criminals to ease the burden of overcrowding. It is a great naïve ignorance that believes that these criminals are not committing offences while out on the street. I know this as a fact because I have arrested people who were on temporary release.
Gardaí are arresting criminals close to the end of their shifts but are not allowed to investigate the crimes further because certain Superintendents will not allow them claim overtime. I know this to be a fact because I was that soldier.
The frustrations I felt and still feel led me to make the decision to leave the job I loved. I don't see a point putting my life in danger for a slashed down wage.
Frustrations

The decent and hardworking professional members of An Garda Siochana are now forced to work in an organisation that is unable to adequately protect and serve the community. I turned up for duty on days when there was only one car crew available to cover Henry Street District.
I walked the beat, I know the great frustrations of gardaí on the ground, how their morale has been destroyed. I have no regrets in joining the force but in years to come management, government and the citizens of this state will regret the moment they removed
the teeth from the jaws of their police force.
Lucky to have a job? Maybe the public are lucky that they still have a police force that cares.

flutered

firstly its the sunday world, secondly he is starting out as a journalist, sensasionalism provides both with an audiance, then we have the old adage, never let the truth get in the way of a good story, the real story is in there somewhere, also o/p this has been done to death elsewhere on boards, is it necessary to flog a dead horse,

TheGimp

He speaks the truth.

Mc Love

Heard him speaking on the radio during the week and agree with everything he said from the judicial system to regeneration causing havoc in once quite and safe residential areas!

The Judicial system along with the social welfare system needs a complete overhaul!

Wilbert13

Absolutely agree with everything he says. Heard him describe Limerick as a failed society on the radio which is bang on.

Regeneration has ruined once peaceful communities across the city, county, Clare & Tipperary. By trying to solve one problem they have created a much bigger one which will be harder to solve.

kilburn

Is that the same guy who allegedly broke the guys arm and who got beaten up outside Mcds by the rugby scumbag?

Clareman

Fairly indepth discussion on this article in AH

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056719663