Garda conference told of 'immense personal cost' to Athlone detective over bike loan investigation

The Athlone Garda who was investigated for lending an unclaimed bicycle to a pensioner during the Covid-19 pandemic, before being cleared of any wrongdoing, received a standing ovation at the annual conference of the Garda Representative Association in Westport today.

Detective Garda Eamonn Cunnane was brought on stage at the conference in Mayo, along with seven Gardai from the Mid-West, who were also suspended before also being reinstated.

Their presence at the conference coincided with a motion seeking an independent review process for any member of the force who had been suspended.

Garda Michael Ryan, his GRA representative, spoke to the conference outlining Det Garda Cunnane’s story.

Speaking to the media afterwards, he said: “It’s been an horrendous few years for Eamonn, his family and his children. To have your house searched over an act of just kindness and community policing, the personal cost of this has been immense.”

Garda Ryan told the media: “He is good now but he has been through, and that family have been through, a terrible time.”

He added it was ironic that the day before Eamonn Cunnane was suspended he was given a commendation for good police work.

Garda Ryan said that it was “a really sad thing” that the then-Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said at a Public Accounts Committee meeting that not all the facts of the case were out in the public domain.

“That comment alone had a massive strain on Eamonn and his family, and us as his colleagues who knew the position.”

Commissioner Harris told the committee in 2024 that he was “reluctant to engage in the details of this because a lot of detail is not in the public domain”.

Detective Garda Eamonn Cunnane was suspended in the summer of 2020. He returned to work, on restricted duties, in 2023 and was only cleared to return to full duties in March 2024.

A criminal investigation included what his solicitor called a "dawn raid" on the Garda's family home in June 2020 by detectives from the The National Bureau of Criminal Investigation.

The criminal investigation ended nine months later, when the Director of Public Prosecutions found that the Garda had no criminal case to answer.

A subsequent internal disciplinary process did not come to an end until early in March 2024, when it concluded that the Garda had not committed any wrongdoing.

Det Garda Cunnane had told his superiors he intended to loan the bike to a neighbour, and had informed the recipient that the bike would have to be returned.

It’s understood he recently received more than €250,000 in a settlement of a personal injury claim he took against the Garda Commissioner, the Minister for Justice and the Attorney General in relation to his suspension.