Licence to point

THE fallout from Alan Shatter’s revelations about an interaction between Mick Wallace and members of An Garda Siochána continued apace this week. It is a very unusual case and will be of great interest to most people for what it seems to reveal about how politics works in the country. By politics I of course include the issue of “garda discretion” which led to this revelation in the first place.
Perhaps it speaks to a great naïveté on my part but I was under the impression that having penalty points quashed or taken off the system was not common practice. I believed that with the arrival of new electronic and computerised systems, such things had been confined to the past where things operated on a wink and a nod basis. In the aftermath of all the tribunals which exposed the corruption and skulduggery which defined Irish public life for so many decades, I thought we might have learned some lessons and moved on into a different era.
Certainly this new era would be a far more bland affair with checks and balances to ensure that nobody was manipulating the system for their own or a friend’s gain. The hope was it would be more fair and equitable. To realise that it is still possible to simply take penalty points off the system if a garda so wishes was more than a little shock. I am not suggesting that all gardaí are misusing the power but it does seem like a potentially exploitable situation and certainly a temptation for any garda who might be vulnerable.
In saying this I must admit to a certain amount of conflict. The kind of “garda discretion” which seems to have been exercised in the case of Deputy Wallace is what I would describe as sensible policing. He recounts the tale as taking no more than 30 seconds from beginning to end. Stopped at traffic lights, gardaí saw him using the phone. Upon rolling down windows, a short verbal exchange warned him not to do it again, he agreed and both parties moved on. The letter of the law in the case would have demanded pulling the TD over, booking him and using valuable garda time to process him. They would have been entitled to of course and here is where the line can be safely drawn. If they did book him, I would see a problem in allowing another garda to come in at a later date and remove these points from the system as a favour to the person. It is here that a true abuse of the system can occur.
It is in cases such as these we realise just how much power is wielded by An Garda Siochána and the potential for this power to be misused. But until we have been shown otherwise, we will have to take it on trust that this and other powers are not abused. It is through over regulation that we risk ending up with a system so rigid as to have no humanity whatsoever and, as a result, no recourse to reasoned and practical approach.
Another example of the power of gardaí is their access to information. As we have seen on a number of occasions in recent times, many are aware that their information is valuable and will leak when it suits their own purposes or that of the force. However, any attempt to prevent contact between gardaí and the press would lead to a near total loss of any information and represent an attack on the freedom of the press.
Britain’s crisis of soul searching on this issue, the Levison Enquiry, has highlighted this very issue. Granted in their case they were faced with the ugly business of officers being paid by papers, but the point remains, restricting the sharing of information ultimately causes more damage than it solves.
In an ideal world the press will use the information provided to them by gardaí in serving the public good. Again in an ideal world, this is why the information would have been passed on in the first place. The fact that this is not the case is not a problem that will be solved any time soon but not a reason to stop the information being passed.
The passing of information to politicians is slightly different however. This is especially true when it is information that can be deployed in a political manner by that politician for their own gain or to attack a rival. It is for this reason that it will be very interesting how the case of Minister Shatter’s revelations about Deputy Wallace’s encounter with gardaí will be treated by the public bodies it has been reported to.
It is a difficult balancing act trying to find a system of law and order that protects the people but also leaves room for humanity and practicality. Like most systems, it will be as good and as solid as the people who work within it. Of course this means that certain individuals will engage in corrupt behaviours but hopefully that is the big change that has come about since the dark days of the ’80s and early ’90s.
If the reforms and revelations that have come since the tribunals have helped to root out and prevent systemic corruption, then it must be counted a major success.