Rose Conway-Walsh: Garda barring orders kept out of public view
Rose Conway-Walsh intervenes in a committee exchange to challenge the lack of transparency around members of An Garda Síochána who have barring or protection orders against them, and to question how victims can be sure the person they report to is not a perpetrator. She also recounts her experience of the Family Law Court's in-camera rule and asks what true accountability for victims should look like.
Key questions raised: Rose Conway-Walsh presses for clarity on how many Garda members hold barring orders and why the protocol for checking those records is not public. She notes the official figure of 10 may reflect only self-disclosures and argues the public deserves to know the scale of the problem without breaching individual privacy.
Court procedures and evidence: Drawing on personal experience, Conway-Walsh criticises the in-camera rule in Family Law Courts that prevents evidence being used in criminal trials without repeated permission. She describes being disbelieved in family proceedings, accused of parental alienation, and left unable to use material across court systems.
Accountability and enforcement: Conway-Walsh highlights the disparity between the scale of complaints and convictions, noting an example in which 60,000 complaints about coercive control yielded just two sole convictions. She argues that minimum safeguards must prevent members with barring orders from public-facing roles and from handling domestic violence files, and calls for clearer disciplinary expectations when members self-disclose.
Implications for victims and policy: The address calls for reform to ensure victims can trust the institutions meant to protect them, including transparency about internal protocols and stronger accountability within An Garda Síochána. Conway-Walsh asks whether current legal and administrative practices still protect families, or instead create barriers to justice.
Key questions raised: Rose Conway-Walsh presses for clarity on how many Garda members hold barring orders and why the protocol for checking those records is not public. She notes the official figure of 10 may reflect only self-disclosures and argues the public deserves to know the scale of the problem without breaching individual privacy.
Court procedures and evidence: Drawing on personal experience, Conway-Walsh criticises the in-camera rule in Family Law Courts that prevents evidence being used in criminal trials without repeated permission. She describes being disbelieved in family proceedings, accused of parental alienation, and left unable to use material across court systems.
Accountability and enforcement: Conway-Walsh highlights the disparity between the scale of complaints and convictions, noting an example in which 60,000 complaints about coercive control yielded just two sole convictions. She argues that minimum safeguards must prevent members with barring orders from public-facing roles and from handling domestic violence files, and calls for clearer disciplinary expectations when members self-disclose.
Implications for victims and policy: The address calls for reform to ensure victims can trust the institutions meant to protect them, including transparency about internal protocols and stronger accountability within An Garda Síochána. Conway-Walsh asks whether current legal and administrative practices still protect families, or instead create barriers to justice.
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Transcript
Cathaoirleach, firstly I want to thank Mark Ward of TD for enabling me to step in in his place and the reason I wanted to do that was obviously because of the subject and I want to thank you all for your opening statements but particularly for Margaret Loftus who's here today from my own county of Mayo and Margaret I want to commend you for your bravery and for your courage and for the service that you are doing along with all of these other services to the women that we meet all of the time and indeed the men as you alluded to yourself, Shane, for those who are impacted by gender-based violence. I do also want to commend the really good, decent members of An Garda Síochánaill who I have worked with as well who treat victims with compassion and comprehensively as well. I think that's important. So there's two particular questions I'd like to ask you today Margaret and the first one is in relation to some questions that I had put in to the Minister and to the Commissioner in regard to the number of members of An Garda Síochánaill who have protection orders or barring orders against them. Now the number that I was told was 10 but I understand that that may be because members who are self-disclosing and the other thing I wanted to ask you, when I asked about the protocol in relation to how we know, the basic thing is how do we know if a woman or a man indeed is reporting incidents of gender-based violence that the person sitting in front of them doesn't actually have a barring order or protection order against them? But what I was told by the Commissioner's office was that the document outlining the protocol is not a public-facing document and couldn't be shared externally. So I wanted just to get your comments on that and the other question I wanted to ask you was that I heard you mention on many occasions that there appears to be issues between the Family Law Court and the Criminal Court and how the evidence is presented in both of those forms, specifically with regard to in-camera evidence. So maybe if you could just elaborate on those two things and if there's any time left I would ask you what does accountability look like from your end? Thank you, Ruth. Firstly, in regards to barring orders for any type of family law order, members of Fianna Fianna Fianna, it's absolutely impossible for the Commissioner or the Minister for Justice to have an accurate number of how many there are. If he said 10, I'd imagine what he meant by that is 10 who have self-disclosed that they've barred orders against them. Orders made in the Family Law Courts are protected by the in-camera rule, so if the true number was found out other than it being self-disclosed, then it would have been obtained illegally and the person disclosing that information could technically be held in contempt of court. It's not possible to ever know the true amount that have those orders against them. In regards to the crossover between the Criminal Courts and the Family Law Courts, I know from my own experience, having been in both and both running in tandem, that I was told that I should be ashamed of myself and I should go home, apologise to my kids and if the judge in the Family Law Court had jurisdiction, she would throw out everyone of the charges that were coming up before the courts. But that was all done by in-camera and the rest of those proceedings, so I can't even tell you about what happened after that. There's no crossover, there's evidence that I would have given at different times for different applications in the Family Law Court and they couldn't be used within the criminal law setting. A part of them were, but permission had to be given every single time something was to be used. Every single time that I went into the Family Law Courts, I wasn't believed and when I disclosed abuse, I was accused of parental alienation and I was told that there was no place in that court to be talking about what I was talking about. So, at the moment, as much as the in-camera rule was set, I think it was introduced in maybe the 1930s or something like that and it may have been introduced with the intention of protecting the privacy of the family and maybe it was done for good intention. But in my opinion, it has led to the Family Law Courts in Ireland now being a modern day version of mother and baby homes and I'm not the only person to think that. I think my experience in the Family Law Court is very similar to an awful lot of other people and it is certainly not unique to me. In regards to accountability, true accountability, the recommendations I made in my submission Rose is true accountability is when someone can walk into a Garda station and know that the person that they're meeting is not a perpetrator of domestic violence. Every time a file is done in a Garda station, no matter what the offence is, but I'm specifically speaking about domestic violence investigations, that file goes to a superintendent and that superintendent decides if there's going to be charges or not or if that file is going to be sent forward to the office of the DPP for further advice on charges. How can that superintendent, if they are a perpetrator themselves, if they have a bar and order against them, how can they impartially or professionally direct on that file? And I think the numbers that I've brought up there, like 60,000 complaints were met last year on Garda Síochána with regards to coercive control and there's been two convictions for sole charges of coercive control, so there's a complete and utter mix match. I know that all of the agencies in this room are doing absolutely vital work and the legislation that is coming forward is of huge benefit to society, but that legislation is no good if the enforcers of that legislation are perpetrators themselves. What specific legislation, when you say just in relation to the number of a Garda Síochána, what needs to change in order for that to be transparent? Because I think it would be very useful for the public to know, not the individual details, but to know the extent of the problem. Well, firstly, if you do self-disclose, the internal policy says that you may be open to disciplinary proceedings. It doesn't even go as far as saying you will be. To get a bar and order, a very serious offence has had to have occurred for a judge to grant a bar and order. So, you know, when someone is given a bar and order and they go to work like I did, and the person who that bar and order was granted left that courtroom, got their state-issued firearm and hopped into a patrol car, so accountability is at the very, very, very minimum that those members are not public-facing members and they're not at any point going to be meeting vulnerable victims looking for help. At minimum.