The murder last Sunday of the garda Tony Golden, as he went about the routine work of a community-based police officer, was a tragedy and a shocking waste of a young life. The exact circumstances and the sequence of events leading up to the crime are not yet fully clear. Nevertheless, the shooting underscores important issues relating to the future work and role of An Garda Siochana.
Some gardai have linked the tragedy to a lack of policing resources, although it has not been made clear why this might be the case. Questions have also been raised about how and why the killer, Adrian Crevan Mackin, who was already on bail on a charge of IRA membership, could have been in possession of two semi-automatic handguns and a large quantity of ammunition. It also appears as though a disturbing psychiatric report on Mackin, prepared for the Police Service of Northern Ireland, was not available to the gardai.
The Policing Authority Bill, now before the Oireachtas, has been described as the most radical reform of the policing structure in the history of the state. Three inquiries — two led by former judges and one by a panel of lawyers — are examining aspects of the force’s recent operations. The structures and reforms that emerge from these processes will redefine the relationship between An Garda Siochana and the government. They will also bear directly on the work and safety of police officers on the ground, and on the quality of the policing service that will be available to the community.
Garda Golden was engaged in a routine policing task that scores of gardai undertake every week: securing the safety of women and children in violent or potentially violent domestic situations. Along with vehicle stops, this is one of the most common situations in which police officers worldwide find themselves at risk of death or injury. Yet in this instance there was a further element of danger. The young man involved in the domestic incident was allegedly a member of an armed group that opposes the Northern Ireland peace process and rejects the will of the people as expressed in referendums north and south.
Golden was by all accounts an exemplary police officer, living among the community he served. He did his work unarmed and in uniform. When he went to the house that Mackin shared with his girlfriend Siobhán Phillips, he did so in the non-confrontational, low-key manner in which gardai have traditionally done their business. He would probably be alive had there been a different level of response to the incident. In all likelihood, had Garda Golden been aware that Mackin had firearms, armed support would have been brought in.
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The garda authorities will have been reviewing the available information to ascertain if there were any shortcomings in security intelligence. Mackin was not a senior dissident, but had been associated with individuals who are. At the very least he would have been a person of interest to the divisional crime and security units in Co Louth. It is to be hoped there was some level of surveillance of his activities.
Some questions present themselves. Should the situation have been treated as a security-related operation? Would issues of resources have arisen if the incident had been upgraded from a routine domestic case? And where, in dealing with this type of situation, does the civil policing role of An Garda Siochana end and its role as the state’s security service begin?
Does this tragedy mean that, in future, similar situations will require the involvement of firearms units and other security-related resources? It would be a high price to pay if gardai had to deploy military levels of firepower every time they respond to a domestic dispute in certain areas, or involving certain categories of people.
When firearms are introduced into confrontational situations, there is always a risk of escalation.
These questions need to be addressed in adapting An Garda Siochana to its role in an Ireland where large-scale paramilitary activity is no longer a threat, but where conventional policing tasks become more complex and public expectations of the police service are high. For perhaps 80 years the absolute priority for the force has been the security of the state. In future, there will be more emphasis on the needs of the community, on dealing with non-political conventional crime, and on issues of social behaviour.
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Anything touching on security will be beyond the remit of the new Policing Authority. So the question arises, when a tragedy like the murder of Golden occurs, who will be responsible for assessing the force’s handling of it? If it’s a security matter, the Policing Authority cannot be involved. The issue will go back to that shadowy area that lies between the force’s management, the justice minister and the Department of Justice.
There is less than complete confidence among rank-and-file gardai that there will be a full analysis of how an unarmed and unsuspecting garda walked into a confrontation with a volatile young man, who was associated with a violent paramilitary group and possessed lethal weapons. Too often, internal garda inquiries conducted by high-ranking officers have leant uncritically towards official convenience and not got to the full truth of things.
There is a strong argument that the justice minister Frances Fitzgerald should request the Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission, the Garda Inspectorate or some other suitable judicial figure to examine the full circumstances surrounding the incident at Omeath in which Garda Golden and Mackin died and in which Phillips sustained serious injuries.
Shortcomings in intelligence — or not sharing it — caution about the costs of mobilising adequate resources, or departures from standard procedures may have been apparent in the circumstances surrounding some other garda deaths.
That is not to take from the absolute culpability of the individual who points the gun and pulls the trigger. But these issues have to be addressed to ascertain if there are lessons to be learnt about minimising risks to gardai when they put themselves in the way of danger.
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Many tributes have been paid to Garda Golden’s courage, his sense of duty, his commitment to the community and his personal qualities as a family man.
The most fitting tribute of all would be to ensure that any preventable risks to other gardai, while discharging similar tasks, are eliminated in the future.