Traffic laws do not apply to the Gardai?

[SKELLY]

Also guards are never really off duty.

[markcolenn]

Gardai and all other emergency services are exempt from this Law

[locke]

Gardai and all other emergency services are exempt from this Law

Only when responding to an emergency.

[blindjustice]

Ah the gards...Some of you may recall this story -



Two bean gardai killed this woman after speeding around a dangerous bend in clonskeagh. The DPP did not prosecute and the 'independent' engineer's 'inquiry' into the accident blamed tyres on the accident despite the tyres being within legal limits. This piece of trickery shifted the blame somewhat from the bean garda who were speeding at 70 kmph or more without their sirens on. The women claim that their sirens were on. I was near the scene of the crime and at the time and can confirm that they were not. They also claimed that they were pursuing an emergency in Beech Hill which is in completely the opposite direction to the way they were travelling. When they realised this, they claimed that the address was Beechwood Avenue (roughly the right direction).

In addition to this, in what is possibly the most horrific aspect of this case, the gardai abandoned the stricken woman and ran, screaming from the scene of the accident (the accident was horrific with the poor woman pinned up to the bus stop by the car) to the Dodder from which point they contacted their colleagues in Donnybrook. Around 10 gards arrived on the scene minutes before an ambulance arrived which would suggest that the women were making calls about their own futures instead of about the future of the woman they killed. The woman died a few days later in hospital and could well have been saved if she had received treatment more quickly.

I understand, although I am not certain, that neither woman has been suspended from the force but that one of them had to take a year of fully paid leave to 'deal with the stress of it all' and that the other was transferred. The Garda Ombudsman reopened the case in 2009 but I don't think there was any prosecution of the women.

This case, and in particular the scene of around 10 gards on the road outside before any ambulance had arrived, protecting their own, encapsulates the garda siochana in this country for me. One wonders what awful crime happened up in Beechwood (or was that Beech Hill) with all those gards hanginig around clonskeagh.

The carry on at Pearse Street is obnoxious and arrogant and seems to express very well not so much the idea that the Gards think they are above the law but the fact that they are.

PIGS

Hi, did you let anyone know you were a witness and didnt hear or see the sirens?