An Garda Síochána: Motion Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-13 ============================================================ Joe Conway (IND), Cultural and Educational Panel Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. I will preface my contribution with a short anecdote. It may seem a little astray of the point in the beginning but I hope to tie things together at the end to illustrate a pertinent point about policing. Those who are old enough, and not many of us here are, might cast their minds back to a fine summer's morning in 1978 and picture the quayside at Rosslare Harbour. Parked there was an unmarked Garda car, a Hillman Avenger. Not many of those present will remember those cars either. Inside it were two plain clothes gardaí based in Ballybricken Garda station in Waterford. Their task that morning was to greet the ferry coming from Fishguard and to escort two VIPs all the way across the division from Rosslare to where the Waterford division ended at Youghal Bridge. The people in question were the United Kingdom ambassador to the United States at the time, Peter Jay, and his wife, Margaret Callaghan. They were VIPs on that basis alone, but were also VIPs because Margaret Callaghan was the daughter of the then British Prime Minister, James Callaghan. They had a house in Glandore, County Cork. The two lads were detailed to follow them all the way from Rosslare Harbour to Youghal Bridge, which they did initially. Peter Jay was driving one of these great big Volvo estates and took off at high speed and the two lads in the Avenger behind were having great difficulty keeping him in sight. That was the state of play until they got to Waterford, where, mercifully, the Jays pulled in at the quayside to breakfast in the Granville Hotel. The two guys in the Avenger said they were not going to have this all the way to Youghal bridge, so they hotfooted up to the station in Ballybricken and borrowed a special detective unit Vauxhall Victor. They said to themselves that they would keep the Jays in sight until he got to Youghal Bridge. The gardaí waited for the Jays to come out. After breakfast, the Jays came out and restarted the journey. However, the gardaí noticed something different. Mrs. Jay was now driving. She beetled all the way to Youghal Bridge at a steady 35 miles per hour. The gardaí were grossly overpowered in their pursuit. That story was told to me by one of the guys in that car. It illustrates to me that policing is inherently a most uncertain profession. What happened there was a microcosm of what happens in policing. An integral part of policing is that the person going out in the morning or the person at the top of the organisation does not know how the whole situation is going to pan out. I was thinking this afternoon about the integral ingredients of good policing. I would put it down to good training and education of the aspiring policemen and policewomen, good leadership at the top that does not lose the dressing room and demoralise the force, and the fact that these people are given a status in society such that they are not vindictively chased by the keyboard warriors, or indeed the people who are intimidating them on the street or when they go for a drink in their locality or whatever. We in this State are blessed that we have a police force that acts as the guardians of the security of the State. The translation of "An Garda Síochána" is "the guardians of the peace" and it provides the security of the State. The Garda must be supported not just to look at the human rights of the downtrodden and dispossessed; it must also look at the human rights of the silent majority. That is an eternal balancing act that the Garda must do. The silent majority, the people who are law-abiding citizens, must also be looked to. From my perspective and from talking to many of them, gardaí are becoming demoralised from what they would see as weak leadership in many instances. That has changed recently, as some of the other Senators have adverted to, but they have been victims of disaffection from leadership in recent years. It is to the credit of the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, and his team, including the Ministers of State, Deputies Brophy and Collins, that we are making an investment in the people we have recruited, who have an inherent esprit de corps in An Garda Síochána. That is important. Mistakes were made in the past. I am happy to support this great motion. I have heard some great contributions, particularly from the two guys who served. That was very enlivening. There is little in the motion that I would not wholeheartedly support. However, we must keep an eye to the awful intimidation of members of the force, both online and in person. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-05-13/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:56+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-05-13