Commissioner

Title: Garda Commissioner 

Name: Justin Kelly

Native Of: Dublin

Appointed: September 2025

Career Highlights:

Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly has 33 years policing experience. Commissioner Kelly was appointed by Government as Garda Commissioner from 1 September 2025. He was previously Deputy Commissioner Security, Strategy and Governance. Previous to that, as Assistant Commissioner, Serious and Organised Crime, he was responsible for leading the national policing response in areas of drugs and organised crime, cybercrime, economic crime, immigration and crimes against vulnerable persons. He was the strategic lead for the development of capacity and organisational policy in a number of areas connected with serious crime investigation. 

Prior to that he was Detective Chief Superintendent, in the Organisation’s Operational Counter-Terrorism Unit, the Special Detective Unit.  He was previously Detective Superintendent, Garda National Protective Services Bureau, as well as a Detective Inspector, Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau, and a frontline Inspector in the Blanchardstown and Clondalkin areas of Dublin.

In 2001, he was seconded to work for the United Nations in Bosnia Herzegovina, where he worked monitoring and building the capacity of local Law Enforcement.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor in Civil Law (BCL) from University College Dublin,
• Master of Criminal Justice from John Jay College in New York, (Recipient of the McCabe fellowship in 2009 to undertake a year long period of study and research at John Jay College)
• Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Dublin City University
• Master of Serious Crime Investigation from the University of Limerick.
• Strategic Command Course, College of Policing, U.K.