Strong words.
Sinn Féin TD Martin Kenny has claimed that members of the Gardaí have been using informants to “entrap people for crimes and then prosecute those people.” The Sligo-Leitrim TD has also asked for a Commission of Investigation to be created because in his opinion there are “high ranking Gardaí who protected those rogue Gardaí and covered for them with secrecy and denial.”
UTV have listed a series of allegations that the TD has been alarmed by over the last two years. He states that an informant – acting under the direction of two Gardaí – was the victim of entrapment after being instructed to steal a generator and tools from a builder. The man in question then sold the stolen property to a man whose house was immediately searched the next day, he was subsequently convicted.
The TD also expressed “serious concerns” about the relative recent disappearance of a man in 2011, believing that a well known Garda informant was the last person to see the man before he vanished.
The Sinn Féin TD stated that it was “well known” that a Garda informant was among the last people to see this man before he went missing. These concerns were initially brought before the then Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan, but they were “fobbed off”.
RTE have also reported that Kenny believes that “Gardaí were running their own informants outside of the CHIS programme” and that there are “high-ranking gardaí who have protected these rogue gardaí and covered for them with secrecy and denial.”
Kenny used the debate to raise the issue “of alleged Garda malpractice”, but he does believe that the“vast majority of Gardaí are doing their job honestly and diligently”.
Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald has called on the Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan to respond to these allegations.
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