An old joke: asking what’s the difference between apples and oranges, the answer being there’s no such thing as apple bastards. An acquaintance once told it to my family and was embarrassed when he found out my father’s a Protestant.
A senior garda made contradictory statements during an internal probe into claims he failed to adequately investigate corruption allegations against an Athlone garda.
Dublin Airport’s security procedures were changed the day after an investigation commenced at the airport in response to a whistleblower raising concerns with the Department of Transport.
Ex-detective garda Tom Higgins, named in an intelligence file linking him to the drug trade, was previously investigated over his alleged involvement in a tax scam.
In 2002 footage emerged of gardaí viciously assaulting people engaged in a peaceful Reclaim the Streets protest on May Day in Dublin city centre. One of these guardians of the peace was captured on video using his baton to beat a protester over the head. His display earned him the nickname Robocop.
An internal garda intelligence file named three Athlone gardaí suspected of involvement in the midlands drug trade.
'If it wasn’t for American leadership, and if it wasn’t for America and Europe working together, I don’t know what kind of world we’d live in.'
Donohoe ignored allegations a partly state-owned financial institution knowingly loaned almost €10 million to a company acting as a front for a property developer in debt to Nama.
In September 2023, I wrote the first story about the use of non-medical grade springs in surgical implants at Temple Street Children’s Hospital in Dublin, as well as broader concerns about care received by spinal patients there. Some reflections.
On 2 February, 2024 attorney general Rossa Fanning wrote to minister Darragh O'Brien and the coalition leaders with his advice to government on a controversial amendment to the Planning and Development Bill 2023. Here is the advice in full. Download it at the links above and below.
The garda suspended for lending a bicycle to an elderly man assisted a whistleblower colleague who’d raised evidence of another guard’s collusion in the drug trade. The suspended garda – as well as the assistance he gave the whistleblower – was identified to colleagues during a tribunal.
Darragh O’Brien was prompted to radically change state planning law because a major property developer was refused planning permission for just one development, according to advice the housing minister received from the attorney general.