I attended the @CitizAssembly yesterday as an observer

Along with @iancriminology and Senator Lynn Ruane, we had communicated with the Assembly's secretariat to convey our serious concerns about the dearth of relevant criminal justice & policing expertise heard by the Assembly My first time observing the Assembly in action, and it was an impressive and inspiring example of deliberative democracy in action

I was very impressed with the structure and procedures governing the presenations and questions

I thought the Chairing was excellent

#CADrugUse

The most senior officer in the force engaged in a smear campaign at the highest levels of state governance

Against a man who had the temerity to highlight routine forms of corruption in the force

Doubt this holds a candle to that

https://twitter.com/Independent_ie/status/1700822678079185343

Funny how many in media, gov & courts have forgotten that's what the Disclosures Tribunal was ultimately all about

Part of the reason for this amnesia is no doubt how little judge Charleton made of that extraordinary feature of the scandal and what it said about Garda culture

In Ireland, the only solution mainstream politicians offer in the aftermath of awful attacks like that in Talbot St is 'more Gardaí' and 'tougher sentencing (powers for courts'

But we aren't a particularly under-policed state (if we take that to mean 'how many cops are employed'

https://twitter.com/thejournal_ie/status/1682346316066693123

We have more police per head of population than US or England & Wales (less than Northern Ireland for obvious reasons)

We also have more police than Nordic states

Part of our problem has definitely been an extraordinarily slow process of civilianisation in An Garda Síochána