23 April 2025 — ICCL has published the outcome report of its first annual policing conference, Police Reform in a Changing Ireland: Next Steps after the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland, which took place on 16 May 2024. This conference was organised in partnership with the Committee on the
Administration of Justice (CAJ) as part of our Policing for Peace project.
This conference took a past, present, and future perspective to examine how police reform in Ireland has been implemented, beginning with a keynote address exploring why we need a human rights-based approach to policing. This was followed by panel discussions, each of which took a critical perspective on what has been done since the publication of the final report of the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland (CoFPI) in 2018.
The panels discussed relevant topics such as:
- The experience of CoFPI implementation and progress made;
- Independent assessments of the CoFPI implementation progress and outstanding challenges;
- Changing population demographics, evolving policing and national security challenges, and the increase in far-right and anti-government extremism.
Overall, while the conference noted the significant progress made in police reform in the last six years, gaps remain regarding diversity in An Garda Síochána, trust between ethnic minority communities and An Garda Síochána, and the independence and scope of the new oversight bodies.
Moving forward, ICCL will continue to advocate for a human rights-based policing approach and monitor emerging issues, including potential reform of the regulation of drugs, Garda use of facial recognition technology and other surveillance technology, the policing of far-right intimidation, and the policing and state response to historical human rights violations and legacy issues.
The Policing for Peace project is funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust.