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1 6
July-August 2018
NEWS
Drawing Drew
T
HE CONTROVERSY over the appointment of
former Deputy Chief Constable, Drew
Harris, as the new Commissioner of the
Garda Síochána failed to elicit any detailed
examination of his senior role in policing
in the North over the past decade. Harris has over
34 years of policing experience, first with the since
disbanded RUC and more recently with the PSNI.
Media and political commentary failed to properly
explore the potential personal and political conflicts
he may face as he deals with sensitive security and
intelligence issues in this jurisdiction while dealing
with his undoubted former allegiance to the securit y
services of the UK.
As Deirdre Younge has written in
Village
(July and
October 2016) Harris made an important intervention
as the Smithwick Tribunal was coming to a close,
apparently pre-determined to find collusion and on
the verge of mistakenly defining Owen Corrigan as
the colluder. Harris made it clear to the Tribunal that
there was another colluder who had been paid a lot
of money for providing the information that led to
the murders; but did not specify who he was. The
Tribunal was running out of time and on the basis of
this apparently informed view was stymied from find
-
ing any specific colluder. The Tribunal
concluded, absurdly, that there had been
Garda collusion in the murder of RUC offic-
ers north of the border af ter they’d visited
the Garda station in Dundalk. But it did
not feel obliged to say who the colluders
were. This made it almost impossible for
anyone to prove that the conclusion of
collusion itself was unfounded.
In his previous role as Assistant Chief
Constable in charge of the PSNI Crime
Operations Department, where his respon-
sibilities included intelligence, major
investigations and specialist operations,
Harris worked closely with the British
security service MI5, as such a position requires. He
gave evidence to the Smithwick Tribunal in 2012 that
“I have overall responsibility for Intelligence within
the PSNI…but I am also responsible for the interface
with the Security Service”.
It is this relationship that has reportedly raised
eyebrows among senior as well as retired civil serv-
ants and gardaí, not known for their radical approach
when it comes to criticising sensitive government
appointments.
Much media coverage, however, focused on the
tragic loss for Harris of his father, Alwyn, who was
killed when the IRA blew up his car in October 1989.
His mother escaped with minor injuries in the blast.
It al so recalled the f ac t that when he was appointed
as PSNI Deputy Chief Constable in September 2014,
Sinn Féin MLA, Caitríona Ruane, withdrew from the
Policing Board selection panel af ter claiming that the
“process may have been compromised”.
Rather than examining what was being alleged by
Ruane, the focus was turned on to the role Harris
played in the arrest of Gerry Adams, some months
previously, in connection with the abduction and
murder of Jean McConville in December 1972.
The decision by Ruane to withdraw, in fact, related
to the manner in which Harris defeated Will Kerr, an
Assistant Chief Constable and a rival candidate for
the job of Deputy Chief Constable.
According to some of those involved, Kerr emerged
from the first stage of the selection process ahead
of Harris in the assessment of those present, who
included members of the North’s Unionist and
Nationalist parties and independent members.
Ruane withdrew because she suspected that politi-
cal pressure was being applied on the elected
by Frank Connolly
“I have overall responsibility for
Intelligence within the PSNI…but I am
also responsible for the interface with
the Security Service” – Drew, 2012
Rather than examining
Ruane’s allegation that Harris
had been elevated by political
pressure, over Kerr, in the
interview process, the focus
was on Harris’s role in the
arrest of Gerry Adams
Ireland’s new Garda Commissioner has –
in the PSNI – been too close for comfort
to MI5 and MI6, whose agenda is often
inimical to that of the Republic
July-August 2018
1 7
members and on the executive of the Polic-
ing Board to choose Harris, which they did.
In December 2014, Kerr lodged a complaint
to the Fair Employment Tribunal alleging that
he had been the victim of religious and politi-
cal bias af ter he failed to land the job as DCC.
As the substantive hearing of the FET
approached, Kerr’s legal team sought and
obtained details of the selection process
during the deliberations of the Policing Board
which included the weightings that placed
him ahead of Harris during the competition.
The Policing Board settled the case and Kerr
moved on to a senior position with the
National Crime Agency.
When Sinn Féin leader, Mary Lou McDon-
ald, raised questions about the recent
appointment of Drew Harris as Garda Com-
missioner, she acknowledged that he “comes
to this with his own story of loss and pain
from the conflict in the Nor th and that cannot
be minimised”.
Her main concerns about Harris, however,
related to his role in dealing with those she
termed the victims of British State violence
in the North and in the Republic, including
the Miami Showband members, those killed
in the Dublin-Monaghan bombings of 1974
and others killed by the Glennane gang made
up of loyalists, including serving RUC and
UDR members in the 1970s.
As the key officer in charge of the PSNI
Legacy Support Unit, set up to examine alle-
gations of collusion in scores of deaths of
nationalist and other civilians across the
island, Harris has been accused of withhold-
ing critical information, by the survivors of
these attacks and the relatives of those killed
in numerous atrocities.
In 2014, Harris was asked by lawyer, Frank
O’Donoghue QC, acting for the senior coroner
in Northern Ireland why his office was still
refusing to release to various inquests the
Stalker and Samson reports into alleged col-
lusion by police officers in a range of killings
across the North in the 1970s and 1980s.
Defending the decision, Harris maintained
that the documents continued to be classi-
fied as “top secret” despite an order for their
disclosure upheld by the Lord Chief Justice.
O’Donoghue asked during the 2014 hearing
of the Coroners request for information on
the classified material: “If I might just say
this to you, Deputy Chief Constable, you see
at each turn, whether it be an inability to
apply resources, whether it be the failure to
re-classify material that really ought to the
re-classified, each step of the way there has
been delay occasioned by decisions that
appear to have been consciously taken by
the PSNI”.
Harris replied: “Well I don’t particularly
accept that point. We have acted in good
faith in managing very complex and dif ficult,
complicated material that we have very
onerous responsibilities in respect of
handling.”
Asked why there had been no review of
the classification in 32 years and after sev-
eral such requests by Coroners and others
in the intervening priod, Harris said:
“I will inquire into the matter as I have
said.”
Harris also landed in hot water when it
emerged that he had attended meetings of
the Northern Ireland Retired Police Officers
Association where former RUC members
were advised on how to deal with questions
posed by the Legacy Support Unit about
their role in controversial killings.
Among the assurances given to the retired
officers by LSU members, who included
Harris, were that:
“Legacy is one of the defining issues of
our future. We all have a stake in this. We
are all proud of our service in the RUC. The
PSNI is determined to play our part in the
defence of the RUC”.
Harris went on to assert that: “We don’t
dissociate ourselves from what happened in
the past. I have great pride in my RUC
service”.
These comments were subsequently
released to the Senior Coroner as part of his
investigation into delays in the disclosure
of relevant information to inquests. The long
delayed inquests involve cases in which
Sampson and Stalker uncovered evidence of
police, particularly RUC Special Branch and
MI5, collusion in the killing of Nationalists
and Republicans, including IRA members and
civilians.
The transcripts above were discussed at
a seminar entitled
‘Transitional Justice in the
Context of European Convention obligations:
Article 2 and the Package of Measures’
in a
paper delivered by Niall Murphy of Belfast
firm KRW La LLP in November 2014 in the
Ulster Hall, Belfast.
no room for MI5 any more
more room there
Will Kerr, Assistant Chief Constable
4 6
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