The thick blue wall: a socio-historical analysis of police accountability in the Republic of Ireland

The powers afforded to public police in liberal democratic societies to perform their functions of investigating crime and maintaining social order, inherently raise tensions concerning the use of those powers, conflicts with the liberty of citizens, and accountability for these powers. 1n the Republic of Ireland, where An Garda Siochana is the national police force, these tensions became heightened through the publication of the reports of the Morris Tribunal, established in 2002 to investigate allegations of police misconduct and corruption.

The aim of this thesis is to question why these conflicts had not emerged in Ireland prior to this Tribunal, when in other liberal democracies they have been problematic since the conception of police forces.<br><br>To achieve this, an analysis of existing accountability mechanisms was conducted, comparative to best practice in other jurisdictions, establishing that deficiencies existed in all aspects of those systems, particularly in terms of democratic accountability.