Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The reality is that malpractice is not confined to Cavan-Monaghan, which the O’Higgins report deals with, or indeed to Donegal where investigations were held in the past. At the outset, I want to state clearly that in my area of Leitrim, as in other places, the vast majority of gardaí are doing their job honestly and diligently.

I intend to use this debate to raise issues of alleged Garda malpractice that have been brought to my attention by whistleblowers, both serving gardaí and former gardaí. Central to the many events I will now outline is the allegation that gardaí were engaging informants who were active criminals, which was in breach of the rules of the CHIS programme. CHIS is an acronym for the covert handing of intelligence sources. Another allegation is that gardaí were running their own informants outside the official CHIS programme. A third allegation is that some rogue gardaí have used informants or criminals over whom they have control to set up and entrap people for crimes and then prosecute them. The fourth allegation is that there were high ranking gardaí who protected these rogue gardaí and covered for them with secrecy and denial.

The following are some of the allegations that have been brought to my attention over the past two years until recently. There is an allegation that a garda informant, working under the direction of two gardaí, robbed tools and a generator from a builder’s shed and then sold the generator to a man whose house was searched the next day and the stolen property recovered. The man was subsequently charged and convicted in relation to having stolen property.

Another allegation is that a Garda informant was allegedly instructed by his handlers to set a trap for a person at an NCT centre. He placed money in a car as a bribe to get the car through the test. The car had some minor defect and should not have passed the NCT. The informant then told an employee at the NCT centre that the car was nearly okay and he had left a few euros in it. The car was passed and later that employee was charged, convicted of accepting a bribe, and lost his job. The main witness in the case was a Garda informant.

A man was wrongly charged with possession of a stolen tractor, although there was no evidence other than that the tractor may have been collected from beside a farmyard owned by this man. He had co-operated totally with the initial Garda investigation and was not considered a suspect at any time by local gardaí. The investigation was taken over by a detective sergeant who instructed that the man would be charged, to the dismay of the other gardaí. As the man left the Garda station this detective sergeant followed him and waved the charge sheet at him saying: “I can make this go away if you bring me the real culprit.”

One of the more serious incidents in Leitrim is the case of threats to the safety of two serving gardaí from a criminal gang. The detailed plans of a group of criminals preparing to attack these two gardaí at their private homes was known about by senior gardaí and for weeks the information was withheld from those men, both of whom have young families.

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The two serving gardaí accidentally found out that this gang was preparing to attack their homes and had been at their houses on a number of occasions. They later discovered that one of the gang was reporting criminal activity to CHIS and that he was also working outside the formal informant programme for other gardaí.  When confronted on the issue, a senior garda in the Sligo-Leitrim division eventually admitted that he knew about the planned attacks, but said they "needed to protect the source of the information".  The distraught gardaí were then assured that this would never happen again and any potential threats to members would be communicated and appropriate action taken.

However, a short time after this, one of the gardaí was on duty alone in a Garda station in Leitrim. He went off duty at 4 a.m. and went home.  At 8.30 a.m., he got a call to come back in because the station had been attacked and vandalised.  During questioning of a man who admitted the attack on the Garda station, he claimed he was paid €100 to do it by another local man with a criminal record.  The garda later learned that there was information in the possession of more senior gardaí that the station could be the subject of an arson attack on that very night.  This Garda was in the station alone all night and was not informed of the possibility of an attack.  The man who it was alleged paid to have the attack carried out was an informant who worked for CHIS.

I also have serious concerns around the investigation into the disappearance of a man who went missing in 2011 from his home in Aughavas, County Leitrim - my home parish.  Mr. Pat Herran was a man who struggled with addiction problems. However, he was held in high regard in the local community.  Around the time he was reported missing, a memorandum was distributed to gardaí about a "Pat from Leitrim" having been abducted and killed.  When local gardaí arrived at the home of Mr. Herran to check into the report that he was missing, they considered the possibility of something sinister and wanted to have the house sealed off as a possible crime scene.  However, senior gardaí dismissed this possibility and told them to make the usual inquiries and he would turn up drunk somewhere.  After some time, when Garda management finally agreed to seal off and examine the house, they found it had been burgled in the meantime and was, therefore, forensically violated for the purposes of evidence gathering.  There were also a number of individuals with links to Pat Herran whom the investigation team never even questioned, to the dismay of local gardaí.  It is now known that a Garda informant was among the last people to be in Pat Herran's company before he disappeared.  Pat Herran has never been found and his mother and siblings are heartbroken.  The question is: was the protection of informants put before the proper investigation into the disappearance of Pat Herran?

Now it is important to point out that, in 2009, two members of An Garda Síochána stationed in Leitrim brought their concerns about the handling of intelligence sources to the attention of the then Garda Commissioner, Martin Callinan, and they were fobbed off. In 2012, they first brought it to the attention of the then Minister for Justice and Equality, Alan Shatter, and again in 2014, after which the Minister delegated two officials from his office, including one of his chief advisers, to meet the two Garda whistleblowers. Most of the concerns I have outlined were expressed during a four-hour meeting.  Indeed, documented detail of all these incidents was given to the Minister’s office at that time.  Nothing ever came out of this meeting, save a letter from the Minister’s private secretary stating that no action would be taken.  These past failures to deal with matters in the Leitrim district highlight the need to promptly establish a commission of investigation into Garda malpractice.  I have this information and detail because, in 2014, I was made aware of allegations of Garda malpractice in Leitrim by two Garda whistleblowers and, indeed, how it related personally to me and my family.  A man who claims to have been a Garda informant told me that he had been asked by certain named gardaí to carry out a robbery at my house.  The informant claims he did not carry out the robbery. However, my house was broken into in March 2007 and items of value were stolen.  I was an elected member of Leitrim County Council at that time.

While these incidents are several years old, I have also been contacted in the past few months by other serving gardaí who have also made allegations of malpractice in the Leitrim district.

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