A Supreme Court majority has held that the Garda Commissioner was entitled to invoke a separate statutory dismissal power against Raymond Hegarty after an earlier disciplinary process had already resulted in a lesser sanction for the same conduct.
The ruling arose from disciplinary proceedings in which Hegarty admitted breaches in September 2018. An independent Appeal Board subsequently decided in January 2020 that dismissal was disproportionate and imposed a lesser penalty. The Commissioner was legally required to implement that decision and steps were taken to impose the monetary sanctions days later.
The Commissioner then sought to use section 14(2) of the Garda Síochána Act 2005, which provides a separate mechanism under which a Garda may be dismissed where that is considered necessary to maintain public confidence in the force.
The High Court had ruled that doing so would expose Hegarty to a second sanction for precisely the same conduct and would breach constitutional justice. That reasoning was also upheld in the Court of Appeal.
The Supreme Court majority disagreed. As recorded in the dissenting judgment of Mr Justice Woulfe, the majority concluded that the Commissioner was entitled to invoke section 14(2), treating that process as having a distinct statutory purpose from the disciplinary regulations.
Mr Justice Woulfe dissented. He said both procedures in substance allowed sanctions for serious Garda misconduct and that dismissal after an earlier final sanction would amount to punishing Hegarty twice for the same conduct.
He stressed that dismissal from An Garda Síochána is a severe consequence and held that statutory powers must be exercised consistently with constitutional justice. In his view, the Commissioner could not use section 14(2) to override the practical effect of the Appeal Board’s decision where the same conduct had already been sanctioned.
The judgment supplied is the dissenting opinion. It records that the Supreme Court majority reached the opposite conclusion and allowed the Commissioner to invoke the section 14(2) process.