Security for State visits on GRA agenda

SECURITY CONCERNS over the visits of Queen Elizabeth and US president Barack Obama are expected to feature strongly at today’s conference of the Garda Representative Association in the light of falling numbers of gardaí.

Speaking in Westport at the eve of the conference yesterday, president Damien McCarthy said numbers of gardaí had declined by as many as 800 over the past two years, and those who were left were severely stretched.

Mr McCarthy said he would be citing the visits of the Queen and Mr Obama when he addressed the Garda Commissioner today. He said the implications of demands for extra security on an already overstretched force were clear and warned the Garda would “not be able to function as a force” if numbers were reduced to levels envisaged in the programme for government.

He said nobody had “stress tested” the Garda to check whether its functions could be carried out by the 13,000 officers envisaged under the programme. In December last year there were 14,400 Garda members, but Mr McCarthy said the numbers were on a downward trajectory and as many as 1,500 were thought to be at an age at which they could opt for retirement.

Citing the example of the Garda bureau of fraud investigation, which he said had just 13 officers of garda rank, he said the unit was receiving “hundreds” of complaints for investigation every week and “can’t cope” with the requirement for policing the financial institutions on a daily basis.

Recruitment for specialist sectors such as the fraud unit would come in the first instance from the broader Garda Síochána, and would further deplete numbers there, he said, warning there was going to be “a major breakdown”.

Referring to violent and fatal attacks on gardaí, Mr McCarthy called for mandatory life sentences for manslaughter of a garda. He said the courts were restricted in that juries could not consider a garda different from anybody else, but said the gardaí who had been killed or injured had acted “heroically”.

In other jurisdictions, such as the UK, stiffer penalties were in place to deter attacks on police and emergency services. Attacks on gardaí were running at an average of two per day, he said,citing a recent incident in which a garda received 30 stitches after being gouged in the face with a broken bottle. In that instance he said he had no doubt the garda had saved a man’s life.

Different sentencing options must be available, he said, “for those who have no respect for the law; no respect for the life of a garda”.

Nobody had examined the consequences of reducing Garda numbers so fast, he said – an omission which would put Garda safety further at risk. The nearest the force had come to a “stress test” was under former minister for justice Michael McDowell, where satisfactory garda numbers had been set at up to 15,000 in principle.

Pressed by members of the media to speak on sexual comments made by gardaí in Co Mayo regarding women who had been detained, Mr McCarthy acknowledged the comments were made as part of a “private conversation”. But he said “there is no escaping the fact that this is a very serious incident” and that the force would have to listen to what the Garda Ombudsman said, and take on board the ombudsman’s findings.

A wide range of motions relating to health and safety are on the agenda for the two-day conference, which concludes tomorrow.

Some delegates have expressed concerns over levels of ongoing training, lack of resources and the age of the Garda vehicle fleet.