A prominent member of the Garda Representative Association (GRA) has been served with a disciplinary notice over comments to The Irish Times about the health and welfare of its members following a significant incident last month.<\/p>\n
The Dublin garda, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is a senior member of the GRA.<\/p>\n
The Garda staff association told The Irish Times it was \u201cshocked\u201d and vowed to \u201crigorously defend\u201d its representative following the disciplinary notice which was issued last week.<\/p>\n
The force said it has \u201cadvised\u201d the GRA that it must follow the Garda policy governing who may speak to the media on operational matters on \u201cseveral occasions over the last number of years\u201d.<\/p>\n
It said Garda Headquarters \u201cwrote to the GRA in relation to this and related matters\u201d earlier this month.<\/p>\n
Under the Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na Act, current and former garda\u00ed are legally precluded from sharing information gained in the carrying out of their duties \u201cif the person knows the disclosure of that information is likely to have a harmful effect\u201d.<\/p>\n
It is understood Garda management referenced an article published by The Irish Times on August 14th and comments by the garda included in the article. Similar comments were carried in other newspapers. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt is no understatement to say that we are shocked and disappointed that Garda management would come after one of our elected representatives in this manner,\u201d said GRA general secretary Ronan Slevin.<\/p>\n
\u201cI cannot stress enough that the GRA will continue to vigorously defend the right of our senior elected representatives to comment publicly on the health, safety, rights and wellbeing of their members in An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s quite incredulous in the aftermath of this week\u2019s Full Disclosure documentary on RT\u00c9 that GRA representatives are being effectively gagged and disciplined for doing exactly what they were elected to do, and that is to voice the concerns and challenges that we face in an incredibly dangerous and difficult working environment.\u201d<\/p>\n
In response to questions, An Garda Sioch\u00e1na said it \u201cdoes not comment on internal disciplinary matters\u201d but provided a \u201cgeneral statement\u201d.<\/p>\n
It added that it has a \u201cclearly stated policy on who may speak to the media on operational matters\u201d which applies to all members of the force.<\/p>\n
\u201cGarda management has on several occasions over the last number of years advised GRA management of this stipulation in the Garda code,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEarlier this month, Garda senior management wrote to the GRA in relation to this and related matters.\u201d<\/p>\n
The force said it \u201crespects the mandate\u201d of the Garda staff associations, citing legislation which details that the associations may represent their members in matters \u201caffecting their welfare and efficiency, including pay, pensions and conditions of service\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A prominent member of the Garda Representative Association (GRA) has been served with a disciplinary notice over comments…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":628965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-628964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}