Piani per poteri più forti “stop-and-ricerca” per il gardaí nonostante il rapporto del dipartimento ha messo in dubbio l’efficacia
https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/2025/04/15/plans-for-stronger-stop-and-search-powers-for-gardai-despite-department-report-casting-doubt-on-effectiveness/
di gig1922
13 commenti
They can pretty much already search you for no reason, as long as they suspect you have something or have committed a crime giving them more power shouldn’t be getting discussed
Guards already have a pretty much unlimited powers to arrest, search and question due to “reasonable suspicion” laws, which are essentially impossible to challenge. I’m not sure what over-empowering them even further will achieve – surely it would be more efficient to simply get them to enforce the powers they already hold?
More powers to seize pocket spliffs.
Remember folks, if you want to do whatever you like, just don’t stop when asked on a stolen motorbike, or be smacked off your tits in public. You can roam free as a bird then.
Gardai can already stop and search you / your vehicle for numerous reasons, none of which they actually have to substantiate.
All this will do is continue to erode trust between Gardai and law-abiding citizens and make it harder for them to build relationships in the community.
Easy pickings approach.
They’ll just repeatedly search known local offenders for softer drugs like cannabis and pat themselves on the back when possession detection figures go up.
The blindspot for dealers and affluent coke cliques continues.
Reasonable suspicion is the grounds for a search currently. You can drive a double decker bus through the vagueness of that, basically anyone you don’t like the look of. I can’t see how you could give any stronger search powers really or what practical use they would be, other than the minister getting to use it in a ‘tough on crime’ political spin way.
If anything they should have to give documentation outlining the reason for a stop and search like the police in the UK do. At least that eliminates their word vs yours if you have an issue with the search or the grounds for it, and also a paper trail linked to the guard who performed the search.
> The new stop-and-search provisions being advanced by the Minister are contained in the Garda Powers Bill, which will grant gardaí the power to stop anyone they suspect of illegally carrying a weapon.
They can already stop and search you without any real need to substantiate their reasoning. They can search you and your vehicle if they “smell cannabis,” and nothing happens if they’re completely wrong.
This reeks of over-reach, if you ask me. The force has enough power as it is without giving them more opportunities to abuse them.
Jim O’ Callaghan seems to be willing to bend over backwards to facilitate the whims of AGS because they’re down numbers, including reducing the already ridiculously low requirements for entry. Perhaps the better model to pursue here would be to try to understand why so many are leaving and reform the current model to bring it more in line with modern European police forces. Of course, this would actually take effort and can really be managed in five years, so I suppose we’ll just have to bend to whatever whims AGS have so….
Already allowed under the amended Section 16 of the Firearms and Offensive Weapons Act.
> 16.— (1) If a member of the Garda Síochána suspects with reasonable cause that a person has with him or her in any public place (within the meaning of section 9(8)) any article in contravention of section 9 or 9A (inserted by section 40 of the Criminal Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009), he may:
> (a) search the person and, if he or she considers it necessary for that purpose, detain the person for such time as is reasonably necessary for carrying out the search,
When I was younger , there was a really active drug unit going around, you’d get frequently stopped and searched if you were hanging around the shops . It was actually quite effective because any lads that were selling or had hash on them never really hung around openly , smoking or selling.
Ah yes, let’s make it easier for the gardai to power trip. As if it wasn’t easy enough for them to claim to smell weed on you and embarrassed the fuck out of you searching you the side of the road. There are no repercussions for not finding any weed, neither.
Is that not a thing already?
Inept Government, doing Inept things
‘In response to queries, a Department of Justice spokesman characterised the Bill as “codifying” police powers of “search, arrest and detention and procedural rights of suspects.
“The Bill will achieve this through rationalising and modernising those powers to take into account developments in modern technology to provide clarity and transparency.”’
What does this even mean it’s like double speak from yes minister