Drew Harris and the continuing story of the bike

Oscar_Madison

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121943429#Comment_121943429

Don’t hold your breath - it took Gardai over 3 decades to apologise to Joanne Hayes- do you honestly think they’ll apologise for what undoubtedly the commissioner feels is an internal matter that should never have gone public - I’d say he’s fcking fuming behind the scenes that he had to even try and justify this pile of sho1te investigation in public

evolvingtipperary101

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121943372#Comment_121943372

There's plenty of people up North who raise a far more suspicious eyebrow at Harris. He was a liason for RUC Special Branch and the Joint Support Group. The JSG works very closely with MI5. 

hotmail.com

Clearly there was a back story to his ridiculously long suspension.

Drew Harris will be under pressure now to resign.

suvigirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121943501#Comment_121943501

Unfortunately, ridiculously long suspensions are quite normal in AGS.

Members are left in limbo for years and years, regularly.

mikethecop

lads going on about M15 and international conspiracies and whistleblowers ffs

this is about an organization that cares so little for its people that it issues substandard cars, equipment and uniform that is suitable for neither warm nor wet weather refuses them a union and prohibits them on pain on prosecution from speaking to either press nor politicians and wants to stick cctv on them claiming its for their protection when it is for surveillance and control , rolls back on promises for tazers post riot and removes armed response to one station in every two or three counties

why wouldn't anyone who can leave for oz or the private sector and leave the mess to the substandard quota filling recruits coming half trained from Templemore ?

the government only seem to care what the media think and are driven by that

drew was never the right man for this job and he is starting to look more and more like mr bean , every thing he does blows up in his face , he sat in the control room the night of the riot relaying nonsense orders that could never be followed due to his own failings and lack of leadership

animalinside

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121943649#Comment_121943649

Right - there's no backstory, and if there is a backstory, it's undoubtedly the most damning one possible - ie. that he was being targeted due to helping a whistleblower or whatever that theory was.

Not these ideas of "they know he was up to something else but they couldn't get him on that, so they got him on this instead, well done lads". That is absolutely ridiculous - to think the gardai are telling straight up lies to your face but wink-wink, let's all be part of this conspiracy.

It's a vitally important civic responsibility that the public carefully look at the actions of the authorities and hold them to account. You can't just say "I'd imagine" they're doing everything right and this is all just lies because they have to lie due to a technicality. If that's your take on things like this then why are we even here, why bother discussing any public scandal, we just imagine it's about something else they can't tell us about. I mean how stupid are some people.

evolvingtipperary101

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121943649#Comment_121943649

That's some read without a full stop. The title of thread is about Harris and the bike story - not the garda recruits from Templemore or people leaving for OZ. What international conspiracy?

The former Deputy Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland and current Commissioner of the Garda Síochána (who has a master's degree in Criminology from the University of Cambridge) is a Mr Bean type figure? Dumb as a post to a comedic level? I'm supposed to believe that? Now, that's a theory alright....

animalinside

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121943951#Comment_121943951

My sweet summer child...

evolvingtipperary101

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121944099#Comment_121944099

What an insight to the topic.

tabby aspreme

Apparently the search warrant that was used to search the Garda's house was flawed.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41361607.html

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121944732#Comment_121944732

Disingenuous might be a better description than flawed and that is putting it mildly.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121944732#Comment_121944732

The punishment is the process. Seems like a warrant served under knowingly false information. Some seriously corrupt Guards involved here and it is not the poor sod who gave the bike / talked to the whistleblower.

spaceHopper

Not my favorite new source but if it's true, its a good back story as to why he was targited

Bike loan garda was identified in tribunal (ontheditch.com)

mikethecop

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121943767#Comment_121943767

Im not sure what your shooting at here ?

are you saying a 3 year investigation was fine and no issue ? are you saying there was more to it ? which scandal are you on about there are loads ?

do you even know your self ?

look for better sources of information than paddy Cosgrave and chay bowers ffs

mikethecop

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121943951#Comment_121943951

no one forced you to read it kid , if you cant see the topics being connected you probably shouldn't have bothered anyway

I care much what you believe or don't believe i know the damage that has been done when one person was ultimately been responsible. Having meet and spoken to the man on a number of occasions he does not exude intelligence confidence or leadership qualities of any kind and was a blistering embarrassment the night of the riot in Dublin last year .

evolvingtipperary101

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121947555#Comment_121947555

Alright, kid, then how has he landed both these jobs with such an obvious and lacking abilities to do the job?

mikethecop

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121947886#Comment_121947886

lol the fact that he has failed and failed miserably at both have any relevance to you argument ?

both police forces have been left in an dangerously poor state

evolvingtipperary101

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121950932#Comment_121950932

Exactly! So, how did he get the second job? Never mind the first…

mikethecop

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121950953#Comment_121950953

**** politicians pandering to media calls for a outsider and new approach. hasn't that backfired in a big way

do you think he has done a good job ? how so. ?

he has zero support from chiefs and ACs. is so isolated from the front line members that he is supposed to lead that he has a 99 percent no confidence vote (one percent margin of error )

his only political support is Helen whose only support just retired

evolvingtipperary101

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121950994#Comment_121950994

I don't think he has done a good at all. But I'm not so sure he's an idiot either. You stated 'lads going on about M15 and international conspiracies and whistleblowers ffs'.

I know it might be tin foil hat stuff to some. But divide and conquer hasn't gone away. And the Gardai has never been more rudderless or divided from the ordinary person. It's been a series of monumental **** ups, very public ones too, from Harris.
I just wouldn't completely rule it out, that he has links to MI5.

We know from the tribunal of inquiry into the murder of two senior RUC officers in 1989 (Smithwick Tribunal) that half of all senior IRA members in the Troubles were working for intelligence services and that MI5 also had a network of agents within the Garda. A tribunal that Harris turned upside down on its head with new last minute evidence that suddenly pointed the finger at Gerry Adams ( https://villagemagazine.ie/how-smithwick-got-diverted/ . So, I wouldn't rule out Harris of any kind of link - there's more than suspicion up North on that. I just can't understand how he got these jobs, especially given how he underperformed in northern ireland, without someone/s very powerful greasing the wheels. An outsider and new approach, fair enough, but he didn't do a good job and all kinds of suspicion hung around him…

mikethecop

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121951072#Comment_121951072

Fine , He is a M15 sleeper agent controlled wirelessly via 5 g masts by the ghost of one of the former queens corgis

From what I've seen he is a small man in over his head with too much ego to admit it and walk away.

evolvingtipperary101

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121951149#Comment_121951149

I'd believe that before I'd believe someone who is a two-time commissioner is an incapable, Mr Bean like figure.
But I also believe Ireland had a Justice Minister at the time stupid enough to hire someone with a Queen's police medal who comes from a community and culture with a active interest against the Republic's interests. The same Minister who wanted to commemorate the RIC. The same Minister's whose father stood up in the dail and encouraged the government to copy Germany and 'rout the Jews out of this country…'.

mikethecop

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121951321#Comment_121951321

your entitled to believe what you like , but like i ve said under his tenure policing and AGS has disimproved enormously with very few improvements for either the public or the police

the culture in NI is not the same as the culture in the republic, the relationship between the police and the public is totally different thank god

like i said **** politics do **** things and people suffer , its been a long time since we have had a minister of justice that was capable of the job a long time

evolvingtipperary101

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121951418#Comment_121951418

I'd agree with all that.

KaneToad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121943649#Comment_121943649

What's substandard about the patrol cars??

Sheep breeder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121950953#Comment_121950953

think the person next in line in the Gardai was the wrong politics and that didn’t suit with the out going commissioner crew and would have supported rank and file Garda not like the way Drew has treated them.

mikethecop

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121951511#Comment_121951511

build quality is poor and not suitable for 24 7 use especially Tucson's, constantly off the road

electrical systems not upgraded so unable to handle the radio and lights added so it causes constant failures

1.7 deiseal not powerful enough. huge issues with the new electric cars with charging points and practicality for policing

im sure if your are doing the school run they are fine but not for what the are required to do in policing

they are budget family cars with some stickers and lights bolted to the roof . apparently electric skodas are about to come on line but most stations have "historic " wiring and cant be equipped with fast charging points

lack of driver training also a huge issue of course as is refresher training which doesn't exist

at its core its about upper management not being able to understand modern policing and not having to use crap equipment themselves so they dont care. a few eco friendly cars for a photo shoot with the media while some teenager in a 1.4 petrol honda jazz vanishes into the distance coz your battery is out of juice ;-)

Oscar_Madison

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121951571#Comment_121951571

I don’t think we expected the Gardai to go from bad to worse though in terms of leadership - while certain elements within the Gardai needed cleaning up, you don’t then introduce a culture of fear -I’ve every confidence the vast majority are doing good - they don’t need a culture of guilty unless proved innocent introduced - I’d nearly, nearly, prefer to go back to seeing the squaring of speeding fines or sitting at a table blowing into a breathalyser than seeing how some Gardai are being treated.

The bicycle case cost 100,000s - we lost the experience and dedication of a good guard for nearly 3 years when all it really needed was a stern word about form filling then back to work - over and done with . Instead what they did was the equivalent of sending in the ARU to attend a reported theft of an Easter egg by a mother hiding it in her child’s pram - that’s the level of incompetence we’re talking about here

FGR

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121952535#Comment_121952535

The ironic thing is that the theft of an easter egg now takes far too many hours to investigate than it did a few years ago - between taking initial details to input on three different systems that don't communicate, not to mention the actual paperwork for the investigation.

Oscar_Madison

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121953169#Comment_121953169

I’m hearing in the news things like 40 actions that need to be allocated and reported on and closed off around a theft of a lollipop from a sweet shop - maybe slight exaggeration but I think the key message is either Gardai not trained enough on the computer system or the design is just not fit for purpose