Gangland informants who provide valuable intelligence to gardaí on organised crime activity should be permitted to commit criminal offences in certain circumstances, a major new oversight report has recommended.
According to the Garda Síochána Inspectorate, this would mirror systems in other countries that allow law enforcement to sanction certain illegal conduct by intelligence sources in order to dismantle criminal organisations.
The inspectorate made the recommendation in a broad-ranging assessment of how An Garda Síochána handles organised and transnational crime. It was the inspectorate’s final report before the office is folded into the new Policing and Community Safety Authority.
Other recommendations included introducing sting operations to catch corrupt politicians and officials, and significantly reforming how sensitive intelligence is shared throughout the force.
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The Garda has various systems of dealing with informants, formally known as Covert Human Intelligence Sources, who provide intelligence on criminal gangs. Gardaí are encouraged to identify potential informants before referring them to the Garda’s National Source Management Unit (NSMU), where they are assessed for suitability as covert sources.
The inspectorate noted that many informants are themselves involved in offending. In the UK, legislation was introduced in 2021 to allow authorities to issue “criminal conduct authorisations” which permit informants to commit certain crimes in order to prevent or detect more serious offending.
There is no such system in Ireland, the inspectorate noted. Currently, if a covert source commits an offence they are automatically deregistered as an informant by the NSMU.
Head of the Garda Inspectorate Mark Toland said in the report that many Garda members recognise the benefit of allowing informants to participate in certain criminal activity.
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“The current requirement to exclude or remove someone engaged in criminal activity is removing a cohort who know critical insider information about criminal activity because they may be part of an [organised criminal gang] involved in serious crime,” he wrote.
However, allowing sources to engage in crime may carry serious risk, and legislation would be required to provide adequate protections and oversight, the report noted.
Elsewhere, the inspectorate called for legislation to allow law enforcement to conduct “integrity tests” on officials in sensitive positions. This would allow gardaí to carry out sting operations to detect corruption – for example, pretending to offer a bribe to a public official in return for a favourable decision. The inspectorate said that corrupt officials are “one of the most serious enablers of organised crime”.
Under current Irish legislation, if a public official accepts a bribe, both parties are guilty of an offence. New legislation would be needed to allow gardaí to conduct these tests without breaching the law themselves, the inspectorate said.
Last year, the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption (Greco) recommended that integrity testing be introduced in Ireland for Government ministers, the attorney general, senior civil servants and special advisers in advance of their appointment.
The inspectorate said gardaí have enjoyed considerable success in tackling major organised crime groups, including the Hutch and Kinahan gangs. However, it noted these gangs are still operating and have not yet been fully “dismantled”. Furthermore, these high-profile operations have made “little impact to the daily lives of many local communities”.
The recruitment and exploitation of children, some as young as eight, by criminal gangs is a growing concern, particularly in the areas of drug dealing and money laundering, it said.
In particular, a national framework, involving gardaí and local housing authorities, is needed to deal with the issue of “cuckooing”. This a practice, widespread in the UK, where criminals take over the home of a vulnerable person, typically to use it for drug dealing.
