High ranking Gardai homes raided by the NBCI

That is not a coincidence.

A number of Gardaí of my acquaintance would've known well the charged person when he was in the job and he had quite a unique reputation.

If anyone has ever seen the movie 'LA Confidential', think Kevin Spacey's character, Sgt. Jack 'Gentleman' Vincennes.

And did the "number of Gardai of your acquaintance" do anything about it?

I don't think him losing the seat was anything to do with reform of AGS tbh. I think he tried to do too much as Minister for Justice and had too many other responsibilities, so took his eye off the ball regarding his own re-election prospects.

AFAIK hedge fund traders or it experts don't have to chase after skanks or take them on in a scrap on a Saturday night!

You're talking nonsense.

Gardaí have broken their backs trying to bring down drug barons since the term was invented. The RA, the Dunnes, Martin Cahill, John Gilligan, John Traynor, the Westies, the Keanes and Collopys, Fatso et al.

Its hasn't always been successful, but since the CAB was set up after Veronica Guerin in 1996, they have put huge dents in their funds and chased most of them off the island or locked them up. Kinahan/Hutch is just the latest generation to rise from the embers of previous empires and as long as ordinary 9-5ers in this Country think a little bag of white goes hand in hand with a good weekend, that will never stop.

Tis interesting. Harris's escorts attracted some negative media commentary at the time (*) The impression some were trying to convey was along the lines of "who does he think he is?"

Given what has transpired since, I'm minded to think that criminal gangs in league with his own internal enemies were the threat. I am an Irish nationalist, a proud 32 republican who wishes to see a 32 county republic through entirely peaceful means, who thought from early on that Harris was the right person for the role. Nothing that has happened since has dissuaded me from that opinion.

• https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/psni-escort-for-harris-to-dublin-most-unusual-decision-1.3853154

There is a divide between the Gardai of 20/30 years ago and today which is a good thing, thing likes this and a few similar are signals to any who has anything to hide even if it is minor, you will see a different type getting promoted.

I don't know much more than that and even if I did I wouldn't be posting it here with charges having being laid. The boys were junior detectives at the time, they didn't work directly under Murphy, but under the one roof. His lifestyle was known, it was a subject of station gossip, the description of the retirement party is enough to tell you why.

They also say that as a fella who retired in 2010, he would've paid for that party in the Aviva himself. Which also says many things.

You've no idea about strategy do you...

It doesnt matter how long he is gone from the job when its the job that gave him connections to criminals which he then used in his 'retirement'. In fact the longer he has been out of the force the more his activities got way more serious.

This is off the back of Gerry Hutch being arrested in Spain and seized phones being forensically analysed. It seems this retired senior Garda detective superintendent was working for Hutch and using his contacts within the Gardai to find out information that was helpful to him. As well as storing drugs worth 600k in his house.

This is pretty serious stuff but Im not surprised by it either. There has always been suspicions that Gardai are in the pockets of both the Hutch and Kinahan drug cartels and making huge amounts of money out of the drug trade.

There was also a Detective Superintendent who committed suicide with his own gun in Ballymun Garda station in 2018 while he was the lead investigator into the Regency Hotel attack. We've still had no explanation for why that happened and what led him to that course of action. The trial of Patrick Hutch for the Regency attacks collapsed as a result.

The trial of Gerry is set to be explosive, Id say a few retired and serving Gardai are sh1tting themselves at the can of worms that is going to get opened.

a mistake he felt responsible for because he was in charge.

This could either be viewed as one or two bad apples or else its culture? I am sure the vast majority do a good job, but culture does play a part in lot of this, have to laugh at people saying if they suspected why didn't they do anything what exactly were they to do without hard evidence?, although surely someone living life beyond their means as a Garda should be a red flag?

Also, did they really think there would never be any consequences? greedy and very confined that they would never be caught comes to mind?