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A REPORT INTO the practice of some gardaí quashing penalty points on some drivers’ licences is to be published later today but the names of those who had penalty points cancelled and the gardaí involved will be redacted.
The report by assistant garda commissioner, John O’Mahoney, is expected to be published by the Minister for Justice Alan Shatter at around 3pm or 4pm this afternoon.
RTÉ says the report will show that there is no evidence of garda corruption or that there was widespread deletion of penalty points by gardaí as had been claimed by a garda whistleblower and subsequently a number of independent TDs.
Dublin TD Joan Collins used parliamentary privilege to name a sports star, a journalist and a judge who she claimed had had penalty points inappropriately quashed by gardaí with her colleague Clare Daly describing a “a culture out there of writing off penalty points”.
However, Shatter said that the investigation had shown that only a small number of points had been written off in proportion to the number of offences incurred over a three year period.
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quell surprise?? another cover up, if it was an ordinary Joe Soap they probably would be named and shamed, No one should be above the law
Good man joe. Kinda expected that from you. So we shpuld be stalinist society and make up denunciations when evidence is not there??
Cop on
Guardian do not mind Joe.
Didn’t the same type of people accuse the Church and FF of being massively corrupt and covering up the crimes of their members for years.
I haven’t seen a bishop or a FF’er go to jail yet. This is just another smear campaign. The Gardai do not need to be held to account, are above reproach. They along with FF and the Church are the third pillar of Irish society.
Oh right thanks for enlightening me with shite lol. Bishop go to jail? For what? then prove it. Then of course its the dpp who makes the decisions.
Members of ff going to jail? For what? Whats your evidence ? Whats your proof to make a case?
Thats for proving my point about stalinist principles. Dont like political psrty eliminate them.
Mostly the latter.
This is political electioneering by vacuous idiots who themselves break the law in many ways and even advocate unlawful activity. Fines were cancelled and some possibly shouldn’t have been. However to say that entire force is corrupt is a load of bull.
How many people here have had an interaction with a Garda where they were doing something wrong and not prosecuted or fined? To be honest about it I would reckon an awful lot as the manner in which AGS uses discretion in dealing with the public allows us an extremely liberal policing of our country. If every offence detected was prosecuted we’d all be up in arms. In the majority of cases in this instance there were genuine reasons as to why tickets were cancelled. There is NO evidence of corruption as the actions were not corrupt. There are instances whereby people were left off more than likely because if who they were, but doesn’t that happen everywhere. The Gaa official that lets you into a match for free cos you know him is also corrupt by the same measure.
The reason that people’s names have been redacted is simply because those that want that information would a use it to their own end to try and further their own political position and hide from the fact that the hypocritical and corrupt positions that they adopt in the Dail makes a mockery of our national parliament.
@Fir
there is a point. guards inforce the law as is and do so with proof. Cant go to court on made up evidence. Sure if you personally seen a bishop sign order to move a priest or if you have tht order in your possession forward it on and second i dont know exactly what legislation covers that dont think there is any soooooo how can it go forward. When it comes to FF again very very right on it how can you lock someone up for the bankers mess that a member of the party?? can just say it was the regulators fault and even then thats corporate law for the people that enforce that.
Sorry your just jumping on the populist bandwagon, if you want guards to deal with this lobby your local TD to give guard power to investigate that.
As for points wiped out sure it was not widespread and when done must be done by higher rank. One case i have seen woman going to school with kids gets nabbed by van then again going home the officer in charge might say your keeping one offence if you have learned your lesson and being fair might cancel the second which i think is just showing fairness. but sure you cant be all things to all people policing does not work that way.
Maybe this could be an ideal time for Robert Troy of FF to step to the plate and notify the guards to his presence and location. They pointed out that they could not find him to serve him his penalty points. His constituency office, his Dáil office and home address being unknown to Guards but most of Westmeath.
That said when you are faced with serving a member of a party who had a Justice Minister that threatened a Guard with expulsion for trying to enforce time in a friends bar, another of their Justice Ministers was disgraced over forcing Guards to bug business and political opponents. The list goes on.
The poor Guard who caught him doesn’t want to be blacklisted under future FF regimes.
South of the border doesn’t concern you Nordie!!
Yup a complete waste of time and money. From day one it was obvious no worth while action would be taken
A similar point write off caper was discovered in New York. Several high ranking officers have had to resign for the failings in their org. not because they were involved but under the “buck stops here” dictum. Up to a dozen officers may end up going to court over it.
No accountability, no responsibility for org. failings in the Guards. A long line of scandals over the last 30 years in the force and no one fired, resigned or jailed.
Moral authority of the force is at rock bottom and the rank and file have to look at their leadership for that.
actually several are sacked every year for wrong doing. some even went to jail
plus hundreds more that are just not reported
What’s the reason not to name them ? Will the Garda involved get sacked for breaking the law ?
i think the guard resigned from the force but am not 100 percent correct on that
The man who exposed the scandal has had to resign. It doesn’t look like anyone else will.
Remember when the Guards investigated Force Corruption in Donegal they could not find any evidence. The Morris Tribunal found clear proof of 19 Guards being involved in massive corruption and crime.
Don’t talk about, bury it up, don’t rock the boat.
The force leaving itself down once more.
Nope. More than one Garda involved
Talkin out of your hole as usual Joe! No facts to base any of your spiel on!
The Guard that exposed the scandal resigned from the force. He said that it was impossible to work in the force after exposing it. He is actually the nephew of a past tanaiste as well.
You are 100 percent on that one Joe. Put a goldstar up on your board.
@Fir, joe was referring to the guard who cancelled the points. They did not resign or were sacked so he is 100% wrong as are you, so no good stars for either if ye.
Flashbacks to high infants there. Still want it though.
He shouldn’t have been allowed resign. He should have been prosecuted and sacked. He leaked the personal information of 1000s of people. Assume you were one of the people that had points cancelled for a legitimate reason, now your name is out there as a party to corruption even though you did nothing wrong. And people look at him as a hero?
He is a hero. He show cased a dereliction of duty. Sacking whistleblowers is the hallmark of a backwards and poor society. It goes hand in hand with poverty and corruption.
Yes there were at least 2 Garda investigations in Donegal and they could find nothing–it cost us the taxpayers millions of euro for the Morris Tribunal to find 19 Gardai from Garda to Chief Supt, rank were corrupt—-explosive material was being planted in various places by Gardai and then reported as finds to Garda HQ—the RUC were informed of threats that never existed and mobilised Police and Army personnel to deal with them.Wonder what the Commissioner would consider to be corruption?
So the end justifies the means Fir?
No Sean Beag. It means that when a person sees something that is detrimental to wider society, that is contrary to the law that they should expose it. Unfortunately Ireland has no whistleblower law so people are often scared that they will loose their job by doing the right thing.
But he could have exposed it without releasing peoples personal information. Or he could have exposed the dodgy ones and not tarred the completely innocent along with them. But he did neither. He just released peoples the confidential personal information of tons of people wether they had done something wrong or not.
And for the record, that explanation you gave still falls under “End justifies the means”.
19 Guards?? where you get that figure from Fir?? not saying your wrong just i cant seem to find more then 6 names directly involved. by the way a person can be involved in many ways albeit say giving the go ahead for a search that in the end was false evidence planted but again who gave the okey for it would be going on the word of their men yet they are liable in investigation to so something one lad does or in this case more then a few can branch out very very quickly to involve others. I’m sure there was other things that happened during the day in AGS that were very very poor practice, that was then this is now, each and every guard much jump through hoops to justify everything and rightly so in many cases.
but i do have to agree with sean on this leaking peoples private information is criminal offence in itself. If he has issue could have gone with censored documents to stop release of names but went all out. If a laptop belonging to the ESB goes missing with people data on it there is uproar. The ends dont always justify the means. As for resigning because of hardship?? im not sure about that granted he would have been moved from his posting you could not have a person with your details in same position after releasing it. Me thinks there was more to him leaving then meets the eye.
Sorry i just like being the counter balance view to extreme knee jerks :)
incidently this 50,000 point wipe out yet to see proof of that. Anyway sure have independent investigation sure if there is nothing to hide go for it :) all for it
How can i avail of getting my points wiped if i get points. If its not that widespread, who do i need to be, or who do i need to know, in order to get points off my license?
Shatter is talking pure waffle.
I bet the whistleblower in the Garda ranks, will be the only one with their career ‘Shattered’ as a result of doing the right thing.
The Ivory Tower establishment partys FF/FG/Labour are all the same. Me Fein, instead of Sinn Fein :(
Cathal are you on duty to day ?????
http://www.fiannafail.ie/page/s/membership
The above card can be used to avoid criminal prosecution for any number of crimes. It is a de facto licence to steal.
Serious axe to grind with Bertie’s boys don’t ye fella!?!
Why would I not have a serious axe to grind with a party that is a byword for corruption and treachery for the last 40 years.
The problem is that they have enough voters who do not have a problem with law breaking and corruption.
This carry on is shameful, how is there supposed to be moral authority when this is an official investigation.
So once again we see left wing hysteria over blowing a story. You get one or two officer rank rank write off a few points and people say its whole force. Lord save us I love the sensationalist journal contributors.
You forgot to mention that it is also down to Jewish hysteria.
50,000 individual write off’s is just a slip of the wrist.
The real scandal in the force is that a few wild inspectors were going behind everyone’s backs and cancelling their points.
Guardian , that’s we’re you are wrong only a superintendent can remove points from the pulse system , I don’t know the amount of points removed but its not a small few !!!!!
Guardian,
The gardaí are paid (and trusted) to apply and uphold the law of the land. Rotten apples should be identified and dismissed otherwise it goes on and on.
Seamus I fully completely agree with you 100% a few did go wild. Get them dealt with. Im talking about the story as it was reported from the far left of tens of thousands of points gone that it was gking on wholesale.
Those that were involved the few that they were if they are higher ranks would probably be threatened with internal disciplinary proceedings and just retire instead.
And how many disappeared before it got on pulse ?????
Now there’s a good question
@fir, what do you mean by Jewish hysteria? I find the flippancy of how you infer that the Gardai are anti Semitic offensive and undermines your opinion. Trashy, trolling comment.
Also by the same regard, were you ever stopped at a checkpoint of by the Gardai when you were breaking the law in a minor way such as no seat belt, tax a wee bit out, bald tire etc and you were left off. Is that corruption? Going by your position the guard should’ve been flogged to with an inch of his life.
Guardian is trying to say that this is Left wing Hysteria. I was being sarcastic and urge him to go the full hog on it and blame the jews as well. One conspiracy idea is as good as another.
I have no reason to believe that the Guards are anti-semitic. Guardian is not a guard though.
Looking at the history of this government yes there is a lot more to this story I am sick to the teeth with people at the top being protected all of the time.
Garda clears Gardai.
what a surprise!
Points can’t be “removed” from a license by Gardaí once put on. If the ticket has been issued and awaits payment then it can be cancelled thus points never reach the license.
There are lots of tickets cancelled for genuine reasons. Tickets issued in error or the wrong details put on them. It’s not to say that these tickets were not then reissued with the correct details…
There is also an appeals process where someone can write to the superintendent explaining why he/she shouldn’t get the ticket, the super can verify this with the issuing Garda and make an informed decision as to whether he cancels the ticket or not…
Quiet you. It’s much more fun watching the media display their ignorance of the process and the masses lighting their torches and waving their pitchforks.
Which way are the pitch forks pointed ?
I lit the handle of my pitchfork and now I’m in trouble.
Cut off the bottom piece and attach it to your torch. Then use your handle as a torch and your torch as a pitchfork.
I didn’t have a torch in the first place.
That’s how this mess got started.
(there’s a metaphor for something there!)
Cowboys
Will the people that got points off get them back with a fine or extra points ????? It would happen to ordinary Joe soap ;)
Redacted? What a disgrace! Could they not have given them codenames? That would really jazz it up.
“Garda Kojak cancelled penalty points for Mr Merciless”
It’s just further proof that this government has no imagination.
Guardian, you are clearly unhinged!
Why is everybody getting so wound up? NO criminality was discovered. Just a few minor disciplinary issues . Why is Minister Shatter redacting names ?
Nobody should fear reprisals if nothing unlawful has been done so I suggest to avoid people getting strokes through not knowing the names PUBLISH THEM!
It is as some have pointed out a smaller thing. Why people are so peeded off is that it is just another example in an never ending list of State Ireland looking after friends and disregarding the law and the greater good. We are angry about what came out previously and angry that new scandals and disgraces will becoming along shortly and as always nothing will happen to those behind it.
No names which means only one thing to many well known figures are up to their necks in this crime if it were just Joe next door the names would be in black and white on every billboard and Joe would get a day in court. The whole saga stinks I can smell it.
Farce
Id be more interested in getting worsel gummidge to face the music for his tax dodging to be honest. Its as if it never happened.
It’s nice the Fraggle rock political party have some pointless busy work to keep them occupied while the rest of the Dail get on with running the country…
Fair play to Clare Daly and her colleagues for exposing this scandal!
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