Niall O'Connor
INTERNAL GARDA DOCUMENTS uncovered by The Journal corroborate claims that there was “no warrant” allowing gardaí to seize the bike at the centre of the infamous ‘Bikegate’ case.
The longrunning saga of the rural Garda who ended up at the centre of a media storm due to the lending of a bike to a neighbour came to an end earlier this year, when he was awarded a settlement after taking a case against the Garda Commissioner, the Minister for Justice and Attorney General.
Eamon Cunnane, the garda in question, also made a rare public appearance in recent weeks – receiving a standing ovation from his colleagues at the annual conference of rank-and-file gardaí in the GRA.
The background
Cunnane was not named in the initial articles, but his story first came to national attention when it was reported in late 2023 that a garda had been suspended with pay since 2020 for loaning an unclaimed bike that had been in Garda custody to an elderly farmer who lived nearby.
The saga that followed, Cunnane later argued, led to allegations against him of criminality, theft and negligence brought by garda superiors.
He was cleared of all wrongdoing in March 2024, in the wake of a political storm and extensive media coverage. Cunnane later described the period as one “marked by professional humiliation, personal trauma and what I believe to be institutional mistreatment”.
The Bikegate bicycle – an orange Trek – had lain unclaimed for a long period after being taken into garda custody and was stored at Athlone Garda Station.
The country was in the middle of the first Covid lockdown, on 4 May 2020, when Cunnane made the decision to lend that bike to a neighbour, with many retail businesses closed and people told to engage only in essential journeys.
In submissions, Cunnane later argued to the High Court that he was “acting with compassion during a time of unprecedented national emergency” and also at a time when Garda HQ had encouraged all gardaí to be “rooted in their communities”.
The politician
One leading advocate at national level for Cunnane’s case has been Labour TD and former government minister Alan Kelly.
Kelly has repeatedly said, speaking under Oireachtas privilege, that there was no warrant in existence for the investigators as they recovered the bike from the property of Cunnane’s elderly neighbour.
Kelly most recently, on 25 March, declared in the Dáil:
“I could talk about the disgraceful way in which An Garda Síochána went after a garda because he lent a bike during Covid.”
Referring to the €270,000 settlement paid to Cunnane and the estimated legal costs involved in the case, Kelly said the whole affair had cost the state €400,000, adding:
“And there was no bloody warrant to take the bike.
“Nobody seems to be acknowledging this.
“There was no warrant, and that farmer has never got retribution for the fact his property was entered without a warrant. That is on the record of the Dáil.”
The documents uncovered by The Journal as part of our investigation corroborate the claims made by Kelly in the Dáil.
The search warrant
The investigation of Cunnane’s taking of the bicycle was tasked to the Dublin-headquartered National Bureau of Criminal Investigation (NBCI), which is charged with probing major crimes both in Ireland and overseas.
While the specialist officers within the bureau typically investigate major cases like murder and false imprisonment, internal investigations within the gardaí have also been part of their remit.
Sources told The Journal that the case of the bicycle taken from Athlone station was reported up the chain and then treated within the organisation as a major incidence of corruption.
The NBCI were tasked with the job.
Documents viewed as part of this investigation indicated that officers within the bureau got to work in early June 2020, around a month after the Trek bike had been taken from Athlone.
An application for a warrant in the case was made by a Detective Sergeant attached to the NBCI on 3 June 2020.
The justification for that warrant was that they were searching the home of Eamon Cunnane for the missing Trek bicycle.
The application for the warrant under the Theft and Fraud Offences Act explicitly stated it was just for the home of the garda and nowhere else. A district court judge granted that application.
The neighbour
The farmer involved in this saga had already bought himself a bike before any of this started. He’d ordered it and was due to collect it from a local retailer before non-essential shops were ordered to close amid the Covid lockdown.
Sources familiar with the case said that the man, who had problems with his knees, had been advised by his doctor that he should take up cycling.
He explained his predicament to Cunnane – how he had already purchased a bike, but couldn’t access it. The garda decided to provide him with the orange Trek from Athlone station.
At the High Court, Cunnane’s legal team argued that he had given it to “an elderly, vulnerable and isolated man, in good faith”.
In the same court hearing the detective submitted it was an “act of kindness with no attempt to conceal or to profit”. He estimated the bike to be worth around €50.
Cunnane submitted that he had informed his supervisor on 2 June 2020, that he had loaned the bicycle to his neighbour and that he would bring it back to the station. However, the warrant was executed two days later.
On 3 June 2020, the day before the NBCI paid a visit to his home, Cunnane had worked a 15-hour day as he was questioning a suspect in a drug dealing case.
Cunnane states in an investigation statement that he was “completely shocked” by the arrival of a team of detectives from the NBCI at his door the following morning. They seized his phone and searched his house, according to case files and Cunnane’s public statements.
Cunnane told the High Court the operation was “in the nature of a dawn raid” on his home.
It became clear the bike at the centre of the case was not at Cunnane’s home, prompting the decision from the NBCI team to leave the garda’s property and drive the short distance to the neighbour to whom he’d loaned the bicycle.
Senior Garda investigators we spoke to for this article (officers who were not connected to the case) said they were surprised at that decision, as it would not be in line with normal practice for this kind of case.
Cunnane accompanied them there and said that he wanted to minimise the distress to his neighbour. Cunne describes how a detective from the NBCI accompanied him inside the grounds of the man’s property, towards a shed.
They could see inside the shed that the Trek bicycle was in there with the specialist garda property code still attached.
Cunnane’s statement explicitly says that the NBCI detective who accompanied him took a picture of the bike in situ and then brought the bicycle back to Cunnane’s house and placed it in a garda van.
Enquiries we made, with multiple sources familiar with the case, have established that Cunnane had no mobile phone to take a photograph at that time as it had been seized by the NBCI.
The fact that Cunnane did not have access to his mobile means that the photograph could not have been taken by him.
The Journal understands a photo of the bike in situ at the farmer’s property was included in internal Garda files related to this case.
The NBCI detective
The statement of the detective garda who entered the shed said that he was aware his NBCI colleague, the detective sergeant who applied for the warrant for Cunnane’s home, was in possession of the warrant for Cunnane’s own address.
His statement states that he went to a shed in Cunnane’s house and helped to seize three bicycles. These bicycles belonged to the Cunnane family and were later returned to them – and were taken solely on a ‘just in case’ basis by the officers.
This detective said in his statement that Cunnane offered to bring him to the home of the neighbour where the Trek bicycle was located, around a 10 minute drive away.
He followed Cunnane, who drove in front in his private car. The detective said Cunnane went into the farmer’s property and retrieved the bicycle from a shed, took the bike and placed it in his private car before driving back to his home to the rest of the NBCI team.
The detective’s statement does not refer to meeting the neighbour, having permission from them to enter the property or having a court issued warrant to search that property.
This would suggest the entrance to the property was not in keeping with the procedures or legal parameters for seizing the property as part of this kind of investigation.
The second NBCI detective
A second NBCI detective garda also made a statement stating that he had accompanied his colleague (the detective referred to above) to the neighbour’s house and said he was aware that Cunnane had retrieved the bicycle.
The statement does not make mention of a search warrant for the neighbour’s home, and there is no mention of permission for entry from the landowner. This statement also does not mention meeting the person living at the location.
The third NCBI detective
A third detective garda from the NBCI gave a statement of recording the various seized items as exhibits, but mentioned only a warrant for the home of Eamon Cunnane, not for the neighbour.
This officer’s statement does not refer to accompanying the other colleagues to the neighbour’s property.
The statements
Gardaí involved in the investigation repeatedly in their statements give permission for their record of events to be used in an internal discipline investigation.
Sources have said that the NBCI team involved in the case believed that the extent of Bikegate would be that Eamon Cunnane would be disciplined, and did not expect the issue to be progressed to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).
The DPP decides
It is understood that a file was sent to the DPP by the NBCI to have Eamon Cunnane charged, although it is not known what charge was recommended.
Sources told The Journal this was rejected by the DPP due to a lack of proper procedures in place to manage the property lock up and because of a dearth of communications between supervisors tasked with managing it.
Court documents show that on 17 April 2021, Cunnane was informed by the DPP that no criminal charge was to be brought against him.
As it is the policy of the DPP not to comment on cases in which they are involved, The Journal has been unable to verify the extent of the DPP’s involvement in the matter
After that 2021 decision, an internal disciplinary investigation re-commenced while Cunnane remained suspended from duty – from June 2020 until August 2023 – and concluded that he be reinstated on a limited basis.
A later Garda board of inquiry, which ran from February to March 2024, concluded that he had not committed a serious breach of discipline.
Cunnane was cleared of any allegation or of misuse of Garda property and the board was satisfied “that the applicant’s behaviour was indicative of his honest dealings”.
He was awarded a cash settlement, arising out of his lengthy suspension, earlier this year.
We made efforts to speak to Eamon Cunnane for this story but he did not respond to our requests.
The aftermath
Cunnane is now back working as a garda.
Alan Kelly, the GRA, and others have called for a public inquiry into the case – one described by the rank-and-file Garda association as amounting to “cracking a nut with a sledgehammer”
Michael Ryan, the Westmeath GRA representative, said it had been “a horrendous few years for Eamon, his family, his children”.
“To have your house searched over an act of kindness, of community policing, the personal cost of this has been immense.”
Ryan also revealed that the day before he was suspended, Cunnane was given a commendation for good police work.
Asked for a comment for this article, a spokesperson for An Garda Síochána said that the force “does not comment on the specific details of any investigation.”