Garda inquiry treated with 'urgency'

The Garda Commissioner has said an investigation into allegations of sexual harassment at the Garda training college in Templemore, Co Tipperary, was being treated with urgency and any member of the force found guilty of wrongdoing would be punished.

Mr Noel Conroy said: "At the moment there is a disciplinary inquiry up and running and there is a superintendent carrying out inquiries on my behalf. There are allegations, but I might say only allegations as yet, against two of our members and they are no longer attached to the college.

"We will wait the outcome of that investigation, but you can be guaranteed that it will be quick and swift and if there are breaches we will deal with it in accordance with our disciplinary regulations."

In Templemore yesterday just after the publication of the IMC report, Mr Conroy said gardaí continued to offer assistance to the PSNI investigation into the December robbery of the Northern Bank in Belfast.

Gardaí had carried out extensive inquiries in an effort to trace the origins of a white lorry used in the robbery.

Addressing gardaí at a passing- out ceremony at the training college, Mr Conroy said it was time for the force to "get back to basics" and build relations with the public.

"I'm not just talking about night time when we can have major problems with people leaving nightclubs etc. I'm talking about during daylight hours as well. I will be making big efforts, as indeed other officers are, to try and get our people back there, on the street, dealing with issues on the street and talking to the people about issues in life."

Many of the extra 2,000 gardaí being recruited would be "out there on frontline policing on the street, dealing with the public, as the public wants us to do".

The Minister of State for Justice, Mr Frank Fahey, told the 134 newly graduated gardaí that they enjoyed a respected place in Irish society and had a duty to make the force as inclusive as it could possibly be.

While a review of the entry requirements was already under way to encourage members of ethnic communities to join, Mr Fahey said he also wanted to see members of the Travelling community becoming gardaí. There was no reason why Travellers could not also take up positions in other areas of the public sector and in the private sector.

He believed it was a "very realistic" prospect for Travellers to apply to join the force under the major recruitment drive of the next three years.

The first 275 of the extra 2,000 gardaí to be recruited up to 2008 began their training at Templemore this week.

"Thankfully they [ Travellers] are now being well educated," Mr Fahey said, "and, if we are going to break down the barriers of discrimination against them, we've got to have them in the gardaí and in universities; I'm talking to some of the university authorities about creating a number of spaces.

"We've got to make the criteria such that we can enable members of the Travelling community to get into sustainable employment. I will be looking to the recruitment of Travellers into all areas of the public sector. We would also be hoping to set targets for recruitment into apprenticeships into construction."