Month: August 2023

I’ve heard it said many times that crime doesn’t pay. It’s also been suggested that those who choose to live on the wrong side of the law will have no luck for it in the long run. Generally speaking, from my own experience, I think that’s true but there are exceptions.

Small-time burglars and petty thieves who steal anything that isn’t nailed down are mostly losers. They often come from dysfunctional families and as a consequence, carry lots of baggage including drugs and alcohol, little or no education and few, if any, prospects of improving their lot in life.

They make small money from their criminality and generally blow it to feed their various habits or throw it away on some useless horse in the bookies. Their families rarely receive any benefit from the ill-gotten gains and the only bit of peace they get is when their heroic bread winner goes for one of his regular vacations to the local prison.

I have been in many of these homes during the course of thirty-five years as a policeman and they rarely showed any signs of affluence. It was often difficult to search these properties without gagging. Certainly nothing to be envious of.

At the other end of the scale though, some clever criminals do manage to amass fortunes from their nefarious activities. Certain organised gangs deal in eye watering sums of money but at the end of the day, are they any better off than their failed counterparts? With so many law enforcement agencies hunting them down, finding time to enjoy their wealth can’t be easy.

Not all criminals are sophisticated though. Back in the early nineties myself and my colleague, John O’Connor, interviewed a prisoner for something or other. We took him to the interview room and after every question he answered, “No Comet”. Neither of us could understand what he was saying and when we asked him, he just replied in the same way, “No comet”.

What he actually meant to say was no comment. He obviously picked up that nugget of advice from some like-minded soul but hadn’t really understood it. These characters would probably starve to death if it wasn’t for prison food.

A good example of a hopeless criminal appeared in the Evening Echo in 1992 when the paper described how the town of Macroom was alive with gossip of a daring robber who turned an attempted bank heist into a comedy of errors. The target was the Allied Irish Bank branch at the Square and the would-be thief struck at 4pm in the afternoon.

A ‘stick-up’ man in his mid-20s, said to have been under the strong influence of drink, entered the premises, carrying a coat over his arm and shouting at staff: “This is a stick-up.” Staff and customers were taken by surprise as the culprit ordered: “Everybody get down.”

However, just when things seemed to be going according to plan, the coat slipped from his arm and-the would-be robber was revealed to be empty-handed. At that stage, the culprit explained to all: “It’s an invisible gun.”

Staff and customers erupted in laughter as the red-faced man ran off without his booty. Garda sources say that there was no danger to people who could clearly see that the culprit was drunk.

Drink often features in cases like this. BBC.com reported on a hapless pair in America who decided to rob the house of a local resident in their hometown. They had a few drinks to steady their nerves but when they left for their burglary, they were so drunk they could barely stand, let alone drive.

Because they were robbing a home in their own town, they needed to disguise their identity, so the two blind drunk criminals covered their faces in permanent marker. Their attempt failed when they were caught after being pulled over for drunk driving.

In the UK an attempted robbery of a newsagent was captured on CCTV in 2012. During his attempted heist, the drunk mastermind removed his balaclava, fell over a drinks display, and failed to open the door to escape because he was pushing it instead of pulling. The lady he had just held up with a toy gun had to open it for him.

Another guy raided a petrol station with an accomplice in June 2013. The slight flaw in his disguise was that he chose to wear a see-through plastic bag. He tried to threaten the garage assistant with a ‘gun’ which was actually a mobile phone and it revealed itself as such when the keypad lit up.

Two Welsh tourists landed themselves in court after they got drunk and stole a penguin called Dirk from Sea World in Australia. The pair broke into the park on Queensland’s Gold Coast, swam with the dolphins and let off a fire extinguisher in the shark enclosure, before making off with poor Dirk.

When they woke up – hung-over and with the flightless bird in their apartment – they tried “their incompetent best” to care for him by feeding him and putting him in the shower. They later released Dirk into a canal but were spotted by locals who called the police.

A magistrate fined them 1,000 Australian dollars and told them to drink “a little less vodka”. Dirk was rescued and returned to Sea World unharmed.

In 2011, a 53-year-old from North Carolina, USA walked into a Wal-Mart store and bought a vacuum cleaner and microwave for $476 and attempted to pay for the items with a million-dollar bill from the Monopoly board game. After demanding change of $999,524 from the cashier, the police were called, and he was arrested and charged with attempting to obtain property by false pretences.

Another failed mastermind.

Facial Recognition Technology (FRT) is used widely now and while it might be controversial, it’s nothing new. As far back as 1964, the earliest pioneers of facial recognition were trying to get computers to recognise the human face.

They took it as far as they could with the technology that was available to them at the time, but their work was an important first step in proving that facial recognition was a viable biometric. Since then, every decade has seen an improvement in how it works and how it is applied in modern society. Like it or not, it’s here to stay but not everyone agrees with it.

CNN Travel reported some time ago that a female airline passenger was surprised when she boarded a flight in the States without handing over her passport or boarding pass. Facial recognition and biometric technology, which is used in some airports to speed up boarding, and sift out security threats, had checked her out.

Instead of scanning her boarding pass, her face was scanned at the airport gate and let her through. She wasn’t a happy camper though and before she even sat down on her seat, she sent a Tweet to the airline, asking them to explain the process.

“Did facial recognition replace boarding passes, unbeknownst to me? Did I consent to this?” she wrote. About 10 minutes later, she received a reply explaining that she could opt out of the process if she preferred and apologised if it made her feel uncomfortable.

When I read this, I was surprised that she was so bothered. If the process got her to her seat on the plane faster and easier then surely that was to be welcomed. We constantly whinge about being delayed getting through airports so I thought this would be a welcome shift, but many replied to her Tweet voicing privacy concerns. They debated the pros and cons of a technology that’s becoming omnipresent in airports across the world.

Self-service biometric kiosks have been available to passengers in Cyprus airports for the last few of years. You simply place your passport on a screen and look into a camera while it takes a photo. A few seconds later you receive a receipt with your photo attached. You hand that to the border control officer and off you go.

I have no idea what he does with my photo, and I couldn’t care less either. If this system helps to increase efficiencies, improves passenger experience and bolsters safety and security, I’m all for it.

They also have a biometric system in Heathrow, and I have been photographed there many times and in other airports too and what they do with the information they collect doesn’t keep me awake at night. Most of my personal details exist in their data bases already anyway.

They have lots of information about me from my ticket purchase, my passport, and boarding pass and if taking my photo helps me get from A to B a bit easier and makes my flight safer, then click away.

This conversation is coming closer to home with the proposed introduction of FRT to our national policing service. Minister for Justice, Helen McEntee, is anxious to equip gardaí with the technology to enable them to deal the huge amount of CCT footage they have to process in criminal investigations. Trawling through hundreds of hours of video footage could be achieved “much quicker”.

Ms McEntee said it will not be “live” FRT but will be used for the most serious of crimes like murders, child sexual abuse and abductions. It will enable the force to carry out automated searches of video footage for suspects in criminal investigations resulting in a huge saving of manhours. She plans to introduce the legislation by the end of the year, citing its ability to help solve serious crimes.

Journal.ie reported that The Irish Council for Civil Liberties is strongly opposed the use of FRT for law enforcement and in public spaces. It has called for an outright ban on biometric surveillance in public spaces.

They said, “FRT and other biometric surveillance tools enable mass surveillance and discriminatory targeted surveillance. They have the capacity to identify and track people everywhere they go, undermining the right to privacy and data protection, the right to free assembly and association, and the right to equality and non-discrimination.”

Sounds like they’re afraid we might turn into China where according to Physics.org, that country is leading in facial-recognition technology. But while advocates warn it makes life easier, quicker and safer, opponents counter that it’s another example of how the Chinese government keeps a sinister and increasingly close eye on its 1.4 billion people.

Shanghai and other Chinese cities have started deploying this technology to catch those who flout the rules of the road. Jaywalkers at some Shanghai intersections have their images flashed up on a nearby screen for public shaming and must pay a fine of €2.50 to have it removed.

We’d have some craic if that was introduced to Patrick Street but we’re unlikely to ever match China, one of world’s most heavily monitored societies. They have more than 176 million surveillance cameras in operation and every citizen over 16 must hold an ID card.

Experts say China is racing ahead of Western countries in deploying facial scanners owing to its comparatively lax privacy laws and because Chinese are used to having their pictures, fingerprints and other personal details taken.

At Beijing’s famous Temple of Heaven, they went so far as to install facial recognition devices at lavatories to catch toilet-paper thieves. If someone returns too soon for more toilet paper, they are met with a polite rejection by a machine that recognises them and advises: “Please try again later.”

Might get that for my house.

Philosophers have debated for centuries about whether or not we hear silence. Many have insisted we don’t and contend that we hear only sounds and infer silence from their absence. Others argue that we don’t hear only noises but also their absence as well. Either way, silence can be difficult to find at times.

During my working life in Cork, it wasn’t unusual to receive complaints about buskers kicking up a racket in the city centre. The calls came mostly during the daytime and mainly from retailers complaining about excessive noise outside their premises.

The buskers would be accused of either playing their music too loudly or badly or both and when the staff could no longer tolerate it, they sent for the gardai.

In those days there wasn’t much the gardai could do about it, except move them on but then they took up residence outside another other shop and became a problem for somebody else. Buskers were normally agreeable characters though and changed locations when asked.

Gardai were often criticised by the public for interfering with the musicians who they felt were just trying to make a living. There were times too when buskers couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. As far as they were concerned, they were providing wonderful entertainment.

In many cases they were, but there were some buskers who hadn’t a note in their head. Listening to them over a protracted period could certainly induce a migraine. There were others who couldn’t find the proper note on their instrument if their lives depended on it, and these were often the people who played the loudest.

I remember a young guy who had a repertoire of one song only, and he sang that over and over again until everyone working nearby wanted to kill him. There was another chap who played the thin whistle but not as it was intended. I say played but in reality, all he did was blow into it while placing his fingers over random holes.

Because of those experiences, I have a lot of sympathy for the traders in Killarney. RTE reported that a council meeting was informed that businesses in Killarney were turning up their amplifiers and putting speakers outside their premises in an attempt to outperform the noise from mobile buskers.

The issue of regulating buskers in the tourist town has been on the agenda for years and council management said it is preparing draft byelaws which will go before the public this winter.

Mayor of Killarney Niall Kelleher defended good busking saying “There was nothing better than quality busking in any town and that’s what we strive to have. But we don’t have that, and businesses are putting up speakers to keep others from their doors,” he said.

Some locals and tourists have offered support to the buskers and that’s fair enough but it’s easy for them. The passer-by can choose to stay and listen to the music or leave. The people working within earshot don’t have that luxury. They’re stuck with it whether they like it or not and that’s not fair either.

I’m not sure though that fighting noise with noise is the best solution for achieving a quiet life, but it is a difficult situation. A bit like having an awkward neighbour.

A bad neighbour can be a problem for anyone. If you live in a detached house, you are less likely to be bothered by one than if you live in an apartment. Having neighbours on either side, above and below increases the chances of being affected by one or more of them.

Loud music, furniture being dragged around the place, dogs barking, and late-night partying can grate on the nerves.

In Mediterranean countries, outdoor living is normal, and a lot of socialising takes place in gardens, balconies and roof terraces and at the weekends in particular, the revelry tends to go up a notch. It doesn’t matter whether it’s 9pm at night or 4am in the morning they carry on regardless.

I have experienced this on many occasions in Cyprus. The Cypriots aren’t big drinkers so it’s not drunken partying. They speak loudly at the best of times, and it often seems as if they are arguing with each other but it’s just their way and in the dead of night their voices carry.

It’s not uncommon, in the early hours of the morning, to hear people sitting outside a property having a conversation with people some distance away inside. The best way to deal with it, is to accept that this is their way of life.

There is no intention on their part to disturb your slumber. They don’t set out to make your life miserable so just get over it and appreciate the quiet times when you get them. The last thing you want is conflict with the neighbours.

Dealing with neighbourly disputes was another feature of policing life and noise was often the issue then too so it’s not a new phenomenon. Back in the seventies, you could be sure if you tried to chill out at a park or a beach in the summer, some guy would stretch out nearby with a radio on full volume, listening to Michael O’Hehir commentating on a GAA match.

They were always dressed the same too. A white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, the trousers pulled up to the knees and a handkerchief, with a knot on each corner, perched on top of the head. They didn’t care who they bothered.

These days, the wireless has been replaced with a speaker connected to a phone by blue tooth and the match has been replaced with loud music, but the result is the same. Anyone can be a busker now and silence is a rare commodity.

As a young garda in Dublin in 1980, it was part of my duty to turn up for work fifteen minutes before the start of every shift to allow for a briefing. We lined up before a sergeant who gave us our instructions. We received details of any recent criminal activity in the area and advice on what to be aware of during our patrols.

Then we were on our way. The foot soldiers would be sent on various beats while the designated car crews and the motorcyclists would also be despatched. The only time we would see the inside of the garda station after that would be for a forty-five miniute meal break or to process an arrested person.

One of my sergeants in those days liked to keep an eye on the clock during meal breaks and was never slow in coming into the kitchen to remind us that our time was up if we overstayed our welcome. He wanted us out on the beat.

Paperwork was attended to during the quiet periods and was a pain; something none of us looked forward to. Computerisation dispensed with the need for carbon paper and the practice of sticking sheets of paper together with pins to keep the carbon paper in place, but members still preferred to be out and about instead of dealing with administration.

The sergeant would do his rounds outdoors too and meet up with the guys on the beat to make sure they were where they were supposed to be. It was a simple style of policing. There was very little technology, but we managed. I complained to the sergeant one time before I went on the beat that there was no walkie talkie available, and he told me to stick close to a phone box. No sympathy there.

There was camaraderie though. We were proud to wear the uniform and enjoyed the sense that we were all on the same side. We looked out for each other and a shout for assistance always got priority. They were good days, but things seem to have changed dramatically since then.

For a start, there seems to be more of an emphasis on administration. Members are spending more time indoors attending to the demands imposed on them by technology and oversight than they are on the beat where they should be. There are constant calls for extra resources but there are mixed messages coming from the top.

Minister for Justice Simon Harris standing in for Helen McEntee a few months ago said he was satisfied with the assurance he received from the Garda Commissioner Drew Harris that he had the personnel and resources to do his job.

The commissioner assured him that he was satisfied he had “operational integrity” within the force to carry out the policing responses. On another occasion though Minister Harris said it was “a statement of fact we want to increase Garda numbers and that we can always do with more gardaí.”

In light of the recent attack on an American tourist in Dublin, Minister McEntee said, ” I am in regular contact with Commissioner Harris on the issue of Garda visibility.” That’s a vague statement, but she too must be satisfied with the current level of visibility because she claims she isn’t worried about walking the streets of Dublin.

Public opinion would suggest she’s on her own in that regard. There is a definite lack of a garda presence on the streets and not just in Dublin but in every city and town across the length and breadth of the country. But why is that if the commissioner is satisfied with the level of resources at his disposal?  Could it be down to the way those resources are managed?

The Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors stated, “We have a model of policing that doesn’t promote visible policing, it instead chains members to their desks trying to keep up to date with administrative burdens placed on them.” They have called on the Government to look at this model.

Rank and file members complain they are more like administrators than police officers. Tied to a computer terminal and stifled from oversight from senior management, the Policing Authority, Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission, and the Garda Inspectorate. A far remove from the community engagement style of policing that An Garda Siochana has been synonymous with for generations. 

Over my thirty-five-year service, I met and worked with many police officers from other jurisdictions, and I was always struck by how envious they were of the unique relationship we had in this country with the public and our local authorities.

Unfortunately, we’re losing that connection and the senior management team in Garda Headquarters must take responsibility for that. While they are experienced police officers, very little of that experience has been gained in our jurisdiction.

The team is headed by a garda commissioner who according to the garda website, had 34 years policing experience with the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) before joining An Garda Síochána.

The Assistant Commissioner Governance and Accountability served in the RUC and PSNI for 25 years before joining An Garda Síochána. The Assistant Commissioner Roads Policing & Community Engagement had 34 years’ policing experience with the PSNI before joining An Garda Síochána. The Deputy Commissioner Strategy, Governance and Performance served as a police officer in Toronto, Canada for 25 years.

All well qualified, experienced police officers but the majority of that experience has been gained elsewhere. An Garda Siochana is a unique organisation with a proud history of community engagement, and now we’re in danger of losing that identity.

The Garda Representative Association is to ballot its members on a no confidence motion in the Garda Commissioner. To use a football analogy, I think he may have lost the dressing room.

In November 1971, the Irish Examiner (then the Cork Examiner) published an Editorial that could be just as relevant today as it was back then. It related to a call by the late Mr. Liam Cosgrave T.D. for a recruitment campaign to bring both the army and the Gardai up to adequate strength.

The article suggested that the call would find a sympathetic echo in the minds of a great many people and there was a general feeling of unease among the public that all was not well within the ranks of the gardai.

It lamented the alarming increase in lawlessness and the apparent inability of the gardai to combat it and said the public had every reason to feel frightened at the startling increase in crimes of violence.

Even petty crime, it said, was on the increase. Homes were being attacked, elderly and old people were being assaulted. People were becoming more and more uneasy, and even alarmed for their safety, not to mention the safety of their property.

It said, Governmental decisions not so many years ago to close down suburban garda stations, to dispense with the men on the beat and substitute patrol cars never found favour with the public and the mounting toll of depredation, which is now becoming commonplace, seems to justify the public criticism at the time.

Just to remind you again, that piece was written half a century ago. It seems little was learned since then. A few short years ago more rural garda stations were closed and we know now how that worked out. The lack of a visible garda presence these days is a complaint that is echoed regularly across the country from both rural and urban communities.

That 1971 editorial further suggested that crime prevention was better than crime detection, but such prevention could never be effectively achieved as long as there was a shortage of manpower.

It’s interesting to note that even back then it was recognised that crime prevention was better than crime detection and, in the nineties and early noughties, huge strides were made in that regard.

A serious focus was placed on community engagement, with an emphasis on making communities safer through public participation in crime prevention initiatives supported by community safety teams. It paid dividends until the late noughties when manpower shortages became an issue and community safety teams were deployed elsewhere which brought about the demise of that particular strategy.

Fifty-two years later, the same question was asked in a recent article in The Echo, “When will Cork see more gardai?” It came on the back of a story where the Cork Taxi Council told The Echo that attacks on taxi drivers were happening far too often, and many drivers were not reporting attacks, and called for additional patrols on the city’s streets as a deterrent.

Cllr Deirdre Forde also highlighted the issue in her final few weeks as lord mayor. “People have got to feel safe no matter where it is in the city,” she said. “Businesses work too hard to keep the city centre alive. More guards would give reassurance to the public.”

In recent months, columnist Áilín Quinlan highlighted the lack of gardaí on the streets in Clonakilty and no doubt many other towns and villages in Cork feel the same. Carrigaline is another example of an area where representatives are blue in the face saying that a bigger garda presence is needed.

In 1971, the main reason for the reduction of gardai was said to be lack of finance. Speaking in Cork recently, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said that the constraints currently affecting numbers within An Garda Síochána did not relate to money but were affected by the recruitment process.

Mr Harris stressed that he was committed to recruiting more officers, which was good to hear. But, for everyone concerned about safety on our streets, the question that remains is, when will they be seen?

Last April, the then acting Justice Minister Simon Harris said: “A key priority will be to continue to support An Garda Síochána in protecting our communities from crime through increased resources and a stronger and more diverse Garda service. We will invest in recruitment, training, and technology and progress new legislation to help An Garda Síochána as they do their vital job protecting us.”

I imagine the Garda Representative Association (GRA) was pleased to hear that. They had previously stated they needed better conditions, training, equipment and protection and also a better work-life balance with clearer work patterns and a safer working environment in order to recruit new gardaí and retain the members they already had.

To that end, a new maximum sentence for assaulting gardaí as well as new powers for officers to implement antisocial behaviour orders are among the goals for the Department of Justice for 2023. That plan could see new powers given to gardaí to enforce antisocial behaviour orders and an increased maximum sentence for assaulting a peace officer of up to 12 years.

Sounds impressive but current maximum sentences are rarely imposed in this jurisdiction as it is. As for tackling anti-social behaviour, that requires boots on the ground, but the organisation is struggling to attract people to fill those boots.

According to the GRA, independent research revealed that just 27% of the public regarded a career in An Garda Síochána as an attractive one for themselves or a member of their family. A fact that must be concerning for both the Garda Commissioner and the Minister for Justice.

It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise though. There is little respect for the garda uniform these days and patrolling the streets is more dangerous than ever. Prosecuting gardai for carrying out their duty doesn’t send out a positive message either so what do they expect.