{"id":136740,"date":"2025-10-21T20:14:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T20:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/136740\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T20:14:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T20:14:12","slug":"bravery-award-given-to-garda-involved-in-serious-crime-should-be-revoked-dail-hears-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/136740\/","title":{"rendered":"Bravery award given to garda involved in serious crime should be revoked, D\u00e1il hears \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A call has been made for the revocation of a bravery award issued to a garda<\/a> found to have been involved in serious crime and accused of domestic violence.<\/p>\n

Solidarity TD Ruth Coppinger<\/a> made the call as she highlighted the case of former Donegal detective Noel McMahon who in 2021 received a Scott medal for valour in the 1983 rescue of kidnapped businessman Don Tidey.<\/p>\n

Ms Coppinger asked: \u201cHow is it that a disgraced garda who had to resign from the force was brought back for a Scott Medal for bravery, the highest medal that you can get?\u201d<\/p>\n

Calling on Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> to revoke the award, she questioned how seriously An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na takes gender-based violence \u201cwhen somebody who had to apologise to his wife for the abuse she suffered is brought back for such an award\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Martin said he too would question the award. \u201cI would have issues with that myself. It is a fair point to raise.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said, however, it is \u201cnot within my powers to revoke particular awards, but certainly it is a matter we will reflect on\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ms Coppinger said then acting minister for justice Heather Humphreys<\/a>, now presidential candidate<\/a>, \u201cpresented the award and called his acts heroic, absolutely heroic\u201d.<\/p>\n

She asked if a minister for justice should have done some due diligence.<\/p>\n

Ms Coppinger said the former detective was found by the Morris tribunal to have planted hoax bombs and ammunition across the northwest of Ireland in the 1990s \u201cto make himself look good for catching the IRA\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe bought illicit drugs and he planted them in a nightclub in Donegal, and then organised a Garda raid,\u201d she said. The owner went to prison as a result. It was a miscarriage of justice and the man subsequently got a certificate, declaring his innocence, she alleged.<\/p>\n

The Dublin South-West TD claimed lawyers for the State had to issue an apology on behalf of the minister for justice in 2018, and damages were paid.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow does a garda, a bent copper by anyone\u2019s standards, a crooked cop, end up getting a Scott medal of bravery only three years after such a State apology?\u201d <\/p>\n

The issue was reported on The Ditch news website on Monday. Ms Coppinger said she does not know why the issue was not made public at the time.<\/p>\n

The Taoiseach said he became aware of the matter on Monday and it surfaced because of the presidential election. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was written in such a way to target an office holder at the time. There are nonetheless legitimate questions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously garda\u00ed must have put this individual forward for the Scott Medal for bravery in respect of the kidnapping of Don Tidey\u201d in 1983, he said. Mr Martin said this resulted in the murder of Private Patrick Kelly and Garda Gary Sheehan, a Templemore recruit \u201cmurdered by the Provisional IRA\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said it was not within his power to revoke the award but \u201cthere has to be zero tolerance of domestic violence and gender-based violence more generally\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A call has been made for the revocation of a bravery award issued to a garda found to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136741,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[956,9,10,18,13,14,6,555,19,17,11,12,15,16,5765,5,59,81363,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-136740","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-an-garda-siochana","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-heather-humphreys","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-ireland","18":"tag-latest-news","19":"tag-latestnews","20":"tag-main-news","21":"tag-mainnews","22":"tag-micheal-martin","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-presidential-election","25":"tag-ruth-coppinger","26":"tag-top-stories","27":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}