'Incredibly dangerous' to sack Garda Commissioner
The Government has been warned it would be 'incredibly dangerous' to sack the Garda Commissioner.
Sinn Fein is holding a motion of no confidence in Noirín O'Sullivan this evening after the recent scandals in the force.
But former Northern Ireland Policing Board expert, Denis Bradley, says politicians shouldn't get to decide who runs the Gardaí.
"It will be incredibly dangerous if the Dáil, or in fact the Government, sacked the present Commissioner because what you then have is an incredible interference of politics into the policing situation.
"Therefore the government of a new policing reforms situation becomes impossible," he said.
Sinn Féin says her "pass the buck" attitude has made policing almost toxic in the eyes of the public.
Justice spokesperson Jonathan O'Brien outlined how the commissioner contradicted herself in written answers yesterday to the justice committee on the fake breath test scandal: “Even in her responses to the justice committee, she is contradicting herself.
“One question she is saying, that it was the acting deputy for traffic who initiated the national audit and here she is saying it was herself as commissioner who directed it.”
The Tánaiste and Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald has hit out at the Sinn Féin motion saying the Garda Commissioner has no means to defend herself: “It would be a major departure, if individual public servants, individual nurses, guards or teachers, as deputy O'Callaghan has referred to in recent days were to have their reputation shredded in this house with no opportunity to put their side of the story.
“Such a procedure would not even meet the low standards of a Kangaroo court.”
