Category: Garda

Why is Dublin city’s infrastructure gradually falling apart?

by dsmooney, posted in Dublin, Dublin Mayor, Eamon Ryan, Garda, Policy, public transport

In this column, which first appeared on Broadsheet.ie on Monday May 30th, I ask why our city – Dublin – is slowly, but progressively, falling apart. This is a follow-up, to previous pieces on street crime and housing and says that the chronic shortage of labour due to people being unable to live in the city due to the soaring cost of living here is grinding life here to a standstill.

Dublin Airport CEO spotted at the Oireachtas Transport Committee on Wed June 1st.

This week’s column will be mercifully short. Not because I have deliberately set out to write a short one, but because this is all that is left over this morning after I deleted all the expletives and libelous references to Dublin Airport senior management, I angrily included last night.

The other reason it is short is because today’s offering is effectively a follow-up, to last week’s effort as I am again writing how the cost of living in Dublin is slowly grinding life here to a standstill. Indeed both this piece and last week’s are themselves follow-ons from a previous column on the level of street crime in our city centre.

It is not as if most people had not seen this coming. Back in October 2019, in the course of a tirade on Broadsheet about the perils of relying on public transport I wrote: Continue reading “Why is Dublin city’s infrastructure gradually falling apart?” →

We Have 2 Fronts In The War on #Covid-19… Both are Equally Vital

by dsmooney, posted in Covid-19, Defence, Garda, Paschal Donohoe, Tanaiste, Taoiseach

This column looks at how a speedy roll-out of the various Covid-19 vaccines across Ireland is just as critical to combating the virus as suppressing it, both fronts in the war on Covid-19, both are equally important.

I also examine how a decade of under-investment in our emergency services, particularly the Defence Forces and Gardaí has left the state with very little spare capacity to tackle emergency situations, such as this pandemic. This column first appeared on Broadsheet.ie on January 4th 2021   

Though the daily Covid-19 numbers are spiralling ever higher and the prospect of even tighter restrictions looming large, we must hold on tightly to the belief that we are almost through the worst of this pandemic.

For most of the last year we have fought this pandemic on just one front, that of containment. It is a fight that we have waged with reasonable success, due to the efforts of the government and – most especially – the thousands of essential workers from medical staff to delivery workers to retail personnel.

Now, a critical second front against the vaccine has been opened with the approval and distribution of vaccines. We now have two fronts and the speed of progress on both fronts will decide whether we are weeks or months away from progressing steadily back to some form of normality.

Continue reading “We Have 2 Fronts In The War on #Covid-19… Both are Equally Vital” →

From last Nov: #FakeNews @FineGael style

by dsmooney, posted in Dáil, Fine Gael, Garda, Leo Varadkar, Politics, Taoiseach

This column appeared on Broadsheet.ie on November 28th just before the Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar bowed to the inevitable and accepted Frances Fitzgerald’s resignation as Minister for Justice:

Leo sits

At the end of my last Broadsheet piece I said that the Taoiseach:

“…still has one last opportunity to somewhat redeem his reputation by taking some right steps now.” 

At the time of writing this, it appears that the Taoiseach remains doggedly determined not to take the steps needed to diffuse this ministerial-made crisis.

While sacking an old and valued colleague is not a pleasant task, it comes with the job. He is the Taoiseach, he hires and fires. He is also a politician and it must have been obvious to him since Friday that the mounting evidence of Frances Fitzgerald’s failure to act meant that that Dáil Éireann could no longer have confidence in her as Tánaiste or as minister.

Continue reading “From last Nov: #FakeNews @FineGael style” →

#Garda Commissioner goes… but the problem remains

by dsmooney, posted in Garda, Politics

This column first appeared on Sept 11th 2017 on Broadsheet.ie 

Screen-Shot-2017-05-09-at-17.28.52It hasn’t been a good week for former Garda Commissioners.

It started with Fine Gael airbrushing a former Garda Commissioner, Blueshirt founder and first leader of Fine Gael, Gen Eoin O’Duffy out of its 84th anniversary video (BTW, since when was 84 a landmark occasion?) and it ended with the most recent Garda Commissioner, Noirin O’Sullivan, retiring after months, if not years, of calls for her to go.

While the Commissioner has doubtless made the right decision and her going, as Fianna Fail’s Jim O’Callaghan put it, “…paves the way for a new chapter for An Garda Síochána”, it does not solve the problem of; “…confidence within the force itself and in the wider public arena” (again to quote Jim O’Callaghan). The hapless Commissioner may be gone, but the problem remains.

Continue reading “#Garda Commissioner goes… but the problem remains” →

Some understanding, but no grá for the GRA #Gardastrike.

by dsmooney, posted in Garda, Policy, Politics

This is my Broadsheet article from Monday, October 3rd, 2016

gardai-in-uniform-1878112If the Luas and Dublin Bus pay disputes are anything to go by then the choreography of future pay rows, particularly public sector ones, is likely to run as follows:

Step 1. Both sides negotiate for months without success.
Step 2. Employees go on a limited strike, inconveniencing the public
Step 3. The strike action continues for 3 – 4 weeks while both sides posture on TV and radio news shows
Step 4. Both sides then ‘suddenly’ return, without preconditions, to the negotiating table
Step 5. Employers find extra cash for pay increases they previously said was not there

Would it not be better for everyone, most particularly the public who these public services are meant to… well… serve…, if the unions and management could just skip steps 2 and 3 and jump straight to step 4?

Continue reading “Some understanding, but no grá for the GRA #Gardastrike.” →