Helen McEntee ‘hugely disappointed’ over GRA snub of Drew Harris and refuses to say if she will attend annual event

Justice Minister Helen McEntee has refused to say whether she will attend the Garda Representative Association (GRA) annual conference when Garda Commissioner Drew Harris has not been invited by the body.

Speaking to the Anton Savage Show on Newstalk this morning, she said: “They have extended an invite to me. It’s two months out so I can’t say whether I will attend or not.

“What I can say is that I am hugely disappointed by the decision that they’ve taken to not extend an invite (to Mr Harris) and I really do hope they will consider,” she said.

Ms McEntee said the lack of an invitation to the commissioner “personalises” the issue and the only way to resolve it is to engage with “not just the person but the office”.

She said she has “full confidence” in Mr Harris and the decision by the GRA to not invite him to their conference “came out of nowhere, without any prior warning, without any indication that there was an upset here”.

“This decision was taken and was relayed to the media and I just don’t think this is the right approach. If you have concerns or issues, you have to be able to talk to somebody.”

Meanwhile, Ms McEntee said gardaí are removing people from the State “every single day” and that anyone entering the country must undergo a series of checks, despite any misconceptions around immigration.

Ms McEntee said there are “no facts” to support a correlation between immigration figures and crime rates.

“Every single day, gardaí are removing people from the state, they’re removing European citizens, they’re removing people from outside of Europe, they are charging Irish citizens,” she said.

“So, every day of the week there are people who are committing crimes and some of them are being removed. That is happening already.”

Anyone entering the country has their passport checked against a system and these checks are “no different” for those seeking international protection, she said.

“When they then apply for asylum, there’s a further round of checks. They provide fingerprinting, they have to go through interviews and they’re checking against the systems.”

Ms McEntee said there is an incorrect perception that people with criminal backgrounds are entering the country and that crime is somehow increasing as a result.

“There are simply no facts to back that up. None whatsoever,” she said.

On the recent cases of arson attacks on buildings that were earmarked – or sometimes wrongly believed to have been earmarked – as accommodation for those seeking asylum in Ireland, Ms McEntee said the gardaí have been “painstakingly” trawling through evidence,

She said arson is an “extremely serious offence” that has a “very high bar” for prosecution.

“People have been arrested, there have been 12 arrests related to a number of different offences but this is an extremely serious crime and I’ve said this many times, people need to realise that there is a penalty of up to life in prison for someone who commits arson,” Ms McEntee said, also warning of the sentences faced for vandalism.

Ms McEntee was speaking to the Anton Savage Show on Newstalk this morning following the launch of Cuan, a new statutory agency which aims to combat domestic, sexual and gender-based violence.

She said recent research has shown that domestic violence is happening at a “much younger age” and “children themselves are being impacted in a way that we never knew before”.

Ms McEntee said the court system does not currently work for victims and impacts the rates of disclosure and reporting, adding that the problem is “not going away” and has been worsening in recent years.

“Only in the last two months, we have introduced and I have introduced a new law around stalking a non-fatal strangulation, clearly highlighting to victims that if this is happening to you, please come forward, the law is on your side and we will work with you.”

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