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TODAY, IT WAS announced that veteran police officer Kathleen O’Toole will lead the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland.
Tánaiste Frances Fitzgerald received government agreement to appoint the current Chief of the Seattle Police Department to the role, and made the announcement today.
It is understood that O’Toole is finishing up her position in Seattle before taking up the role as head of the Garda root-and-branch review.
The review will involve a comprehensive examination of all aspects of policing, including all functions currently carried out by An Garda Síochana.
In the Dáil this afternoon, Taoiseach Enda Kenny said that O’Toole “is an outstanding person of great experience”. He added that she has a “deep understanding of the situation which applies here in Ireland”.
So, what exactly makes her “uniquely qualified” for the review of An Garda Síochana? Here’s what you need to know about Kathleen O’Toole.
Irish connections
O’Toole comes from Massachusetts, and served as a police officer in Boston in the 1980s.
She later rose to become the first female police commissioner of Boston.
She became a member of the Patten Commission, set up to reform policing in Northern Ireland, which led to the eventual formation of the PSNI.
O’Toole held the position of Chief Inspector of the Garda Inspectorate between 2006 and 2012.
Since 2014, she has held the role of Chief of Police in Seattle.
One event that is believed to have been raised in cabinet today, relates to a court case brought against O’Toole last year by senior officers in the Seattle force.
Last July, a jury found that O’Toole had retaliated against two officers who had been transferred out of a district amid a dispute over the handling of overtime pay, reports the Seattle Times.
The court had heard that she had complained that lucrative overtime pay had been improperly steered to four black officers.
The city’s mayor, however, backed O’Toole, saying that he supported her decisions and acknowledged that she had taken the role of police chief in the midst of racial tensions among the force.
Doubts have also been raised concerning O’Toole’s presence on the interview panel which appointed Nóirín O’Sullivan as garda commissioner in 2014.
In October of that year, the Irish Independent reported that O’Toole was one of four members of that interview panel.
It is not known if the government is footing the full bill for O’Toole’s relocation costs. A government source said O’Toole is the “ideal candidate” and is “eminently qualified” for the role.
The terms of reference for this review will be finalised by the Tánaiste shortly, and be brought before cabinet for approval.
With reporting from Christina Finn.
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“Dublin has the slowest city centre in all of Europe”. So who’s idea was it to put a children’s hospital in the middle of it and expect ambulances to be able to have effective access?? God help any poor kid that is stuck in an ambulance on a Monday morning.
@dB O’Neill: Also the most speed cameras
I am not at all surprised. Dublin City Council are incompetent.
@Peter Heylin: The Dublin City Manager, Owen Keegan has a personal ambition to rid the city of all cars, without offering any alternative but a bicycle. He has and is doing all in his power to grind the city to a halt to achieve his personal ambition.
@Dave Doyle: ironically he hasn’t done much for cycling either in his quest. Few lines in bus lanes mostly.
@Dave Doyle: He’s not even good at encouraging the use of the bicycle. Even newer bicycle routes like along the Northside quays down in the docklands inexplicably were designed to reduce to one lane out of nowhere and east bound cyclists are apparently meant to figure that one out!
@Dave Doyle: they haven’t even done that safely it’s scary to see buses and cyclists sharing same lane down the quays forcing cyclists into path of traffic, the whole thing is chaotic and needs proper separation surprised there aren’t more fatalities from the inept planning
@Dave Doyle: Ye have a bus network…. AND a Luas… AND a DART….. and the other trains…
@Jessie Ginger: Keegan does not want motorised public transport. It is the bike or foot. He spends tax payers money on his projects. For example, when he finished his stint at DLR they removing some of his unused used bicycle installations!
@Towger: Is that a stated aim of his? Genuine question because I’m ignorant on the politics of Dublin city. From an outsiders point of view, I would imagine a reduction in the number of cars in the city and an increase in cyclists would reduce congestion and improve the bus services in the area. Also, it’s not like he’s going to remove the Luas and the DART so I don’t know where your coming from complaining about a target to increase the number of cyclists.
@Peter Heylin: to be fair not DCC’s fault they are working with a medieval layout in the city centre and surrounding areas. As we’ve seen from Luas 1 and Luas the return any attempt to make significant changes runs into the planning process and people’s property rights.
@Kevin Macdonald: The Luas projects are not a good example to back up DCC. We had trams before (in other towns in Ireland as well Dublin such as Galway (medieval layout also) and the tracks were torn up). No adequate planning for public transport and poor traffic management. Owen Keegan’s past experience speaks for itself. Owen Keegan should resign with immediate effect.
@Peter Heylin: I’m not at all surprised. Ireland, a whole nation of people are completely incompetent.
@Dave Doyle: Do you think adding more cars is how to get people where they’re going faster? LOL
@Dave Doyle: bunny hugging ejiit
@Gus Sheridan: Is that you Owen?
I’d hardly say it’s changed since I was a student 10 years ago, it was shité back then, bus to city centre (from Rathgar) took between 20 and 50 mins. (Ridiculous differences) you could be in on the bike in 20mins. Overpriced slow transport with a city that was designed in the middle ages. Lots of cities had to sacrifice neighbourhoods to build better infrastructure, Paris has the Haussmann project and Barcelona, the Eixample divided into blocks. A radical change is going to be needed, build up (at this stage we will need a good few 15 storey buildings) and build better roads through the city otherwise not much will change.
Blame owen keegan and hi agenda to rid the city of all cars with his only solution being we should all ride bikes instead
@Ian McNally: in fairness its not because of that its because of the complete lack of functioning public transport.
The luas is grest but only covers a thin strip. Same for the dart. Both seem to already be full.
Dublin bus tries, but its too subject to the whims of traffic and their insistence on changing drivers mid route because it suits them means an inordinate amount of time spent sitting in the city centre waiting for a late driver or waiting out the bus’s early arrival, allegedly.
We need a metro, we need to stop fecking around with planning it and listening to every moan and nimby complaint, and just start building. We need to already be thinking about the next 3, 4, 5 radial lines rather than just the single line planned which itseld is overwriting a luas line in places.
@Ronan Fahy: its both coupled together, keegan is trying to force more and more cars out of the city but theres no viable alternative for people to use since as you pointed out our public transport services are already bursting at the seams and completely inefficient.
@Ian McNally: so the identified problem is that the roads are too narrow, but your solution is to add more cars to the mix? please explain that logic. Since we are not going to bulldoze and rebuild Dublin, i don’t see any other option than to limit traffic access and giving public transport preference over private cars. A subway would certainly help in easing the congestion but this is not only incredibly expensive, it is also tremendously time-consuming to build. We’re talking 20-30 years for a half decent network of subterranean trains, and a cost of around 50 children’s hospitals.
@Ian McNally: FYI if 10% of drivers rode bikes, we’d be nowhere near the top of that table, so there’s no need to switch over 100%.
@Ian McNally: so he wants less cars in the city but is at fault for too many cars in the city… Hmmm
@David O’Connor: pathetic strawman argument
@Ian McNally: Why dont you give it a go?..I can sort you out with spokey dokeys and lights and it will be glorious. In all seriousness – Encouraging and promoting cycling or any form of active commuting or combined commuting solves many of the problems facing Dublin. Its exercise, its cheaper/free, its good for your well-being to be outside and its good for your mental health to be active. It might facilitate you to live in a less expensive property that is not well connected by public transport. It takes less time giving you more time to spend doing nice things. Encouraging private vehicles on the other hand causes problems. Pollution, noise, congestion, inactivity, road rage, stress, its expensive, its requires city to devote so much of its already limited space to roads and parking.
@Ian McNally: There is no one person to blame. It’s endemic, all of us are responsible.
What’s needed is massive car parks all around the M50 with decent feeder bus services.
No one likes driving in the city
@BAINNE ATHA CLIATH: Agreed. And it should be a free feeder service. Still much cheaper than adding lanes to roads.
@Stephen McManus: even if it was 40 or 50 euro a week park n ride it would still be cheaper than city parking and the fuel wasted sitting in traffic.
It’s a win win…
@BAINNE ATHA CLIATH: luas red cow car park is €20 for the week and have never seen it full in the morning.
@BAINNE ATHA CLIATH: trains not busses.
Scarlet for Dublin
Psst…Hey kids, wanna know how to beat all that traffic?
@Dublin Cycling: I don’t think getting run over by it counts as beating the traffic. I’d rather go swimming with sharks than cycle down the quays.
@Dublin Cycling: We know, getting rid of all those pesky cyclists and cycling lanes but sure , we’d never hear the end of it,but it sure would speed up traffic not having to share our driving lanes with bicycles.
@Honeybee: So the cyclists should drive and put more cars on the road instead?
@Dublin Cycling: Santry to Harcourt street in 25 mins on an bike……can’t beat it.
@Honeybee: where are Amsterdam and Copenhagen on the bad traffic list?
@Oisín O’Connor: according to a study by UCD last year, the fastest way to get into Dublin city centre from any part of Dublin is by bike. I can’t figure out why the authorities, and eejits like Mannix Flynn who opposes everything that encourages cycling, can’t see that more cyclists = less cars. Way more people would cycle if the infrastructure was there. Cycling is a win win,win. Less cars, lower pollution, healthier population, and the people that actually need to drive in Dublin could do so more freely.
@Honeybee: “..having to share our driving lanes..”
Haaa! Show me the deeds.
They’re not your driving lanes and they never were..
@Dublin Cycling: Cycling from Kildare is not an option. insightful read tho.
@Honeybee: wow have you ever thought about getting into City planning and design? With winning ideas like those Dublin is sure to be killing it
@Michael Carolan: Ya can motorcycle or scooter 7 mins
If Dublin had an underground it would solve the problem of traffic congestion and not living up to big European city status it has acquired. Everyone wants to live there. A subway is the only solution to a problem that isn’t going away any time soon with scratch the surface public bike initiatives and silly trams through the city centre that only make congestion worse as they are above ground and in the way, a joke… Who’s idea was it to install those trams and not build an underground instead? Every major European city has underground transport linking suburbs to the city and vice Versa.
@Nameless: it would take a long time to build a subway, 20-30 years. During this time there would be a myriad of construction sites all across Dublin. Can you imagine adding 20 years of construction sites to the current Dublin traffic? sure, a subway would be great, but it is also easily the most expansive form of public transport.
@Julian Friesel: expensive*
@Nameless: indeed the luas was initially planned to go underground as a metro but those plans were scrapped due to a small number of wealthy people who live centrally whining that the construction would disrupt them….
@Julian Friesel: It wouldn’t take that long! Sure there is infrastructure already there under the city. And expensive but cost effective long term. Anyone who cares about the future of getting around Dublin City in this country and lives in it know the underground metro is not a solution, but THE solution to traffic congestion. Unless you ban cars, which is never happening…
@Julian Friesel: Your concerns are a good example of the ‘irish problem’ any long term project (usually outside the tenure of an elected official so 3-6 years) is not an option, only short term chicken feed fixes to a bucket with very large holes. For that reason it will be generations before the psyche changes enough for us to try and do right with the underpopulated small island we live on. Of all our European counterparts we are quite obviously the closest to the apes.
@Sarah: Varadkar signed off on those trams… He is also responsible for the delay and overspend on the NCH as he changed the location for the hospital from the better Mater site to James. Cost time and resources.
How is Moscow in Europe? Someone needs a geography lesson
@Vincent #SaveDaredevil: Moscow is in the European continent. As opposed to Asia.
@Vincent #SaveDaredevil: It’s in the European part of Russia. Just Google it to confirm.
@Vincent #SaveDaredevil: yes .. you need
@Vincent #SaveDaredevil: Moscow is west of the Urals, so it is in Europe
@Vincent #SaveDaredevil: oops, back to geography for you. Europe stretches from the mid Atlantic rift to the aural mountains.
@Vincent #SaveDaredevil: scarla fur yer ma
We built a city for cars & the results are obvious. No significant investment in transport or cycle lanes.
And the traffic is pretty slow too
Our planning authorities are a joke. They put a lidl shopping centre on a busy cross roads in centre of Dublin west village which was suffering from traffic issues and now is a car park. I get we have constraints but when there are viable alternatives they choose options that are counter intuitive. When locals objected citing traffic we were told “it’s Dublin, put up with it” !!!
Traffic lights at not synced. This alone would allow traffic to move more freely. You just seen to go from one red light to another.
It’s everybody else’s fault that I choose to drive.
See today’s report in today’s thejournal.ie – Dublin enters top top ten most liveable cities for Europeans
@Tom Joe Ryan: lol
then they have the cheek to make a plaza around trinity and dame even though our buses and trams go through there.
Couple of suggestions to rid the city of this terrible stench:
1. Phase out/greatly reduce the number of Dublin Buses, and instead focus on investing in rail infrastructure. Reduces the number of bus lanes, reduces the number of buses clogging up the city. Encourages people to take the train into the city, a much more convenient way for people to travel without having to worry about traffic.
2. Allow left turns on red. This needs to be adopted Nationwide, not just in Dublin. It works well in other cities. Junctions are being clogged up because of every 3rd or 4th cycle of lights are pedestrian only, and traffic is backing up during this. Allowing left turn on red would at least allow a number of cars to get through the junction at the same time as pedestrians are crossing the junction.
@This Guy: And a separate point to note re the comments that the head of DCC is trying to rid the city of cars and focus on bikes as the alternative. It won’t work as Dublin is so far from being setup as a city for cyclists. The fact that the Dublin Bike Scheme was ever approved is amazing to me given the lack of safe cycle ways for people to use. You have inexperienced cyclists jumping on those bikes and taking theirs, and other road users, lives into their own hand. It’s a mess.
Could we be doing more with our waterways to ease traffic congestion? I think we could. But we’re useless at doing anything with our waterways.
@This Guy: no city is by default set up for cycling. Amsterdam and Copenhagen weren’t until the authorities made it happen. In a study in the last year or so, 25% of people asked said they would cycle if it were safer. The provision of cycling infrastructure, segregated and safe, would reduce the numbers of people in cars and on public transport. It’s a win win for all road users.
@James Wallace: I don’t disagree with that. However, Dublin is currently not safe for cycling and is so far from it that the current push to simply rid the city of cars is idiotic. They spent several years trying to come to an agreement on a single cycle way from Hueston station down the quays and had to cancel the project because no agreement could be reached on the path it should take. That’s what we’re dealing with here.
@This Guy: well it’s not actually cancelled yet, I don’t think, though it is massively delayed
@This Guy: Congestion charge. Light rail serving largely populated surrounding towns (Naas, etc). expanding leap-card commuter services beyond Newbridge, make it affordable to get to Dublin from say Athy (40 minutes by train) also add extra carriages from places like Portlaoise, more parking across all stations within commutable distance.
I’m not surprised motherlovers
Need to get that Metro built…
@Shaner Mac: 16 years and waiting.
It’s great to be winning at something
Defo Cork is the slowest.
@Ted Logan: problem is in fact with all the cycle lanes they have put in. 2.. they have widened footpaths and taken in foot paths to facilitate cycle lanes,3 ..closed the main street forcing traffic down the quays, 4 ..all this to facilitat bus lanes which dont work if traffic is congested. All in all cork is just a little town surrounded by hills divided by channels of the lee. But who am i but a lay man, not someone sitting at a desk with a shiney seat to his pants who thinks he has created the greatest solution to traffic congestion.
Nobody ever talks about taxis a significant amount of traffic in Dublin is taxis just to put it in to perspective New York has a population of 8.6million with an area covering 783 sq km. They have 13.500 registered yellow cab taxis. Dublin has a population of about 520k with an area covering 102 sq km yet we have 10.5k registered taxis in Dublin alone that’s more than half of the taxis registered in the whole of Ireland. Not only is it completely unnecessary they do in themselves cause significant traffic problems due to the fact they park anywhere and everywhere. It would make more sense to have me
@Bhiniáimin Ó Beith: get them out of bus lanes and double fines for all “professional drivers”. Let them strike, see how long they last before they start writing up a CV.
Metro and Dart underground. Problem solved.
Owen Keegan solely responsible
See today’s report in today’s thejournal.ie – Dublin enters top top ten most liveable cities for Europeans.
@Tom Joe Ryan: Yip for Europeans .. not Irish People :-) The FG way
Bus and taxi lanes from 7.oo to 19.00 is a very good reason of why it is sooo slow.
Another is the lack of parking
Another is all the companies having a lot of employees have their offices in town or concentrated at the same poles like sandyford , swords blanch..etc ..
@Dominic Leleu: totally agree on your first 2 points, your 3rd is incoherent.
Bus lanes need to be 24/7 (and remove taxis)
More bike parking sadly needed. We should convert all on-street and multi-storeys to bike parking.
@Oisín O’Connor: many live outside Dublin or on the other side.
Imagine the time wasted on transport.
They Obviously didn’t cross the Shannon all the way to Galway city.
Dublin is so backward compared to other citys its like a time capsule stuck in 1980
Hi David Meeks ,note this article
No Rome has with 254 hrs.
What a stupid clit bait headline.
Yet another pulitzer winning article from the journal.ie
@BAAB: clit bait is an altogether different website, no?
@jamesdecay: it sure is. I usually go into incognito mode before having a look at it.
@BAAB: That’s the most time spent in a car and not the slowest which is a different thing. It’s poorly written but it does say that in the article.
This goes great with the article today that tells us we’re apparently in the top 10 most livable cities in Europe….
Dublin needs its real Mayor accountable and Responsible for traffic and transport!
Hope Harris and Leo are reading this to show them just how absolutely stupid they really are on insisting going ahead with building the children’s hospital in James St. Bloody bloody idiots.
Thats what happens when numbers of vehicle users increase and the amount of road for vehicle users decreases and worse it will get .. Its not rocket science
It’s also the derests city in Europe where else have they got the balls to RIP people off for their pints
Each Dublin bike is used an average of 6 times a day. It’s insanely successful.
The only reason cycling is dangerous in Dublin is because of all of the cars. The solution isn’t to make things easier for cars (and have pedestrians dodge left turning cars), the solution is less cars.
Da Village Idiot rules O. K…
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