Garda reform necessary
Miscarriages of justice are all too familiar to Irish people in this country.
Too many people have been the innocent victims of police officers who have extracted false confessions or twisted evidence to suit their suspicions.
But the actions of gardaí in Donegal takes it to a whole new level. Not only did they seemingly seek to frame two innocent men for a crime they did not commit — it now transpires that crime had never been committed anyway.
The man they had been accused of battering to death had not been murdered at all but was the victim of a hit-and-run accident. More worryingly, this should have been obvious if officers who attended the death scene had carried out even the most rudimentary of procedures.
But now thanks to the devastating Morris Report into this spectacularly botched investigation we know none of this happened. But we do know that the garda division in Donegal was riddled with incompetence and seemed to believe the concepts of truth and justice applied to anyone else but them.
The report seems to indicate a deep-seated malaise within the gardaí and its implications reach far beyond Donegal.
Undoubtedly the majority of gardaí do their utmost to uphold law and order — but they have been tainted by the web of deceit and incompetence exposed by the Morris Report.
A root-and-branch reform of the force is needed before the public loses all confidence in the officers of the law. | 