An alternative [to Paul Reynolds] review of Garda performance in 2023...
January - Garda Sgt Cathal Middleton (42) given 5-month prison sentence for sexual assault
February - Luke Rochford (35), who is no longer a member of the Garda, is charged with stealing sniper rifle parts from the Defence Forces ordnance stores in the Curragh Camp in Kildare
February - Ex Gardasuperintendent John Murphy, currently serving six years after being caught with €600k of "Hutch drugs", has been arrested on suspicion of colluding with the Hutch dto.
February - Drogheda District Court, Garda Julie McColgan (32, originally from Donegal) has been convicted of making a false instrument when investigating a crime in late 2019
February - A male probationer Gardawas arrested in Dublin Monday on suspicion of passing info to a well-known sportsman (40s) in Kildare who is believed to be associated with the Kinahan dto
March - Garda sgt Eamon Moran (49) appears in a Dublin court charged with “harassing a woman by persistently following, watching, pestering, besetting or communicating with her” over a 20-mth period.
March - Garda Dillon O'Loughlin (26) admits assault and racist abuse of a taxi driver. The driver claimed the Garda used his badge to seize his taxi, after the drunken Garda started a fight over the fare.
March - A gardawho cannot be named by court order, gave evidence at the gangland/subversive Special Criminal Court in 2021, as a *defence witness* and is now under criminal investigation for perjury
March – Sunday Times reports on ongoing Garda corruption investigations “The level of corruptionamong a cohort of Gardai is of a scale usually seen in Italy or the US in the 1980s”
April - Female serving Garda(30s) based in the Dublin region, stopped at security at Dublin Airport yesterday with 2g of cocaine worth around €150. She's been released without charge with the drugs being analysed
May – Garda investigation: Garda A, a female Garda B, a male Civilian C, a female B was shagging A ,B is now shagging C B paid someone to vandalise A’s home A unlawfully accessed Pulse to get C’s address & phone number
June - Garda John Francis Ryan [no age, no station] appears in a Dublin court charged with dangerous driving after the deaths of three burglars. Covered by all media, but none managed to get a picture?
June - Sgt Desmond Brannock from Store Street in contention for thickest Garda in Ireland. Found slumped asleep at the steering wheel of his car, four times the alcohol limit, he then challenged his suspension. And has lost
June - Garda Holly Lane (33), accused of stealing a cannabis exhibit from a colleague's locker at Store Street station, which she then had for sale or supply. Allegedly came undone when she shared pics on Whatsapp with the whole station. District court non-jury trial in 2024.
July - Cork city-based Gardasergeant Robert Brosnan (44) convicted of crashing his own car off-duty into a van, injuring the van's driver. He was seven times the drink driving limit for a professional driver.
July - suspended Clare gardaDavid Kenneally (41) charged with drink driving. What is rare is the charge Kenneally tried to consume more alcohol at the scene of a traffic stop to frustrate any prosecution.
July - Dun Laoghaire district-based Garda civilian worker Holly Hayden (27) pleads guilty to giving confidential Garda information to a major drugs criminal in Wicklow,
Sep - "Leinster-based" Gardasuperintendent, one of 160 in the entire service, placed on "restrictive duties" after allegedly racially verbally abusing a bouncer at a Dublin nightclub, knocking a phone out of a female's hands & telling Gardai "do you know who I am”
Sep – jailed Garda Paul Moody faces new allegations of domestic abuse and coercive control
Oct – DPP considering harassment prosecution of the male Garda who tormented a female Garda with bananas, knowing that she had a banana phobia.
Oct – Galway garda Michael Mannion (41) sentenced to 6-months in prison for two counts of spying on female colleagues in a changing room
Oct – Dublin garda Mark Doyle pleads guilty to eight counts of assault though charges of coercive control appear to have been dropped. Sentencing expected in early 2024.
Nov - Detective Garda Robert Hennessy (sorry, no age, station or photo) judged guilty of assaulting well-known St Johns Ambulance victim, Michael Finnegan. CCTV in a bar showed the assault.
Nov - Garda John Burke, stationed in Tralee, says GardaPatrick Curran (35) stationed in Killarney, assaulted him causing harm. GardaCurran denies the assault and says he was in his own bed the whole night.
Some time in 2023, Garda Anthony Gath released from prison after a year’s sentence for sexual assault.
Not once covered by RTE during the trial, conviction or sentencing in December 2022.
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On this day in 2024, a Saturday, we witnessed, thanks to social media, the most shameful undermining of journalism in this State.
A short thread about 'investigative journalist' Paul Connolly (47)...
#BlackoutDay
Around 3pm on that Saturday in Coolock, a disguised (hoodie, cap) Paul Connolly turned up with "other crew" and set up a counter protest to the long-established 'Coolock says No' protest against an asylum centre at the old Crown Paints site.
There was a scuffle between Paul Connolly (right below in the hoodie) and the protesters, at which point Paul Connolly phone, a black Apple iPhone 14, came into the possession of protesters.
Yesterday, the Journal produced a laudable and tragic chronicle of the 37 women killed in Ireland in the past five years.
However, exeption must be taken with their entry for Geila Ibram.
The Journal attempts to paint a picture of the life of Geila Ibram, but it does so through the claims of her pimp who claims he (as fiancé) "discovered her body"
How else could The Journal have painted their picture?
Journal might have quoted Derrick Amrein, a Limerick businessman of impeccable repute who operated a bike shop at ground level adjacent to the building where Geila Ibram died.
Probably the second biggest gobshite in the Gardai, Chief Supt Aidan Minnock of the Garda immigration unit, gets top coverage today across our news-hungry mid-holidays Main Media. This is Aidan.
Aidan again assures us that thre's no such thing as an 'unvetted migrant' in Ireland and that's "far right" hokum. Let's review the vetting, shall we?
This is, almost definitely a man, apparently an Afghan, apparently named 'Alinna Shafaie'. But official records in Ireland tell us he is .... 26 years of age. Yep, an official at Helen McEntee's dept of justice recorded Alinna (girl's name) as such. That's vetting for you.
Colourful (and so far, unsuccessful) Kerry election candidate Michelle Keane is in jail!
Immediate reason is, she won't give an undertaking to a Judge not to make comments about Kerry garda sergeant Melanie Walsh.
Background is a conversation between Sgt Walsh & Michelle but...
Michelle is alleged to have made racist and homophobic comments on social media.
And Sgt Walsh phoned her. Michelle recorded the conversation and posted it on social media with commentary that a Judge has now said is defamatory.
What offence was Sgt Walsh investigating though? Or was it one of these new 'hate related non - crime incidents' that Gardai have started to investigate in recent years, ahead of the introduction of Hate Speech law? Incidents that don't result in prosecutions?
Why did the 3-person SF inquiry panel determine the complainant version of events was more credible than the Brian Stanley version? Seemingly, it was this text exchange in the thread 🧵below, which the panel interpreted as supporting the complainant.
Complainant (C) to Brian Stanley (BS)
[FRIDAY 8.33am] I deserve compensation for the emotional trauma you put me through on Wednesday night. I have a picture of the room we were in and of you in your boxers.
My phone tracks where I am. Leave the €60,000 cash in my letterbox divided into six separate envelopes by Monday at 3pm and I will not pursue things further. Do not ever contact me again.
A factcheck from Kitty Holland, this should be good!
Can't exactly see a clear answer to the question posed in the title, but the implication of there being no asylum applicants in the homeless in emergency accommodation, suggests there's no link. Which is rubbish, Kitty.
This is a house, we have a shortage of them and as, a result, we have record homelessness*
This house could be occupied by (a) asylum applicant or (b) someone in homelessness
As we saw from Sen Keogan last year, an asylum applicant may be placed in the house.
The asylum applicant has no security of tenure, it’s not a “social house”** and can be kicked out at any time, but it is a house nonetheless, and as a result of that house being occupied by an asylum applicant, someone in homelessness can’t occupy the same space.