The first public test of the new Policing Authority came on Monday when it conducted a public meeting with the Garda Síochána commissioner and senior staff.
The original scheme for the Policing Authority was broad and ambitious but these powers were progressively watered down.
The authority – which is appointed by the government – cannot negotiate the budget for the Garda Síochána. It can only approve policing plans with the consent of the Minister for Justice. It cannot appoint the commissioner and deputy commissioner, and currently has no power to conduct the promotion of other ranks. It has no power to decide on the optimum number of gardaí required. Only one member of the authority has practical policing experience, and this fact was very evident at the meeting.
It was obvious that Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan and her colleagues enjoyed a very strong tactical advantage over the authority. They controlled the narrative by selecting one of the four key objectives in their policing plan as the topic for discussion. The authority failed to elicit significant detail in terms of measurements or metrics. The policing plan is more of a strategy document than a plan and contains no measurements or metrics or deadlines. It is aspirational and open-ended.
It was difficult to reconcile the fact that while there has been a virtual tsunami of vicious murders this year no questions were put on this topic even though they were discussing community safety. The commissioner was invited to make comments at the conclusion of the meeting on this topic. However no specific questions were addressed to her.
It is also a fact that the Garda Síochána was subjected to vicious resource cuts over the past five years. New recruits are being paid a minuscule €23,000 for an increasingly dangerous occupation.
There were some positives. An outline was provided of very good actions on the community policing front which sounded very encouraging. However, this action is somewhat episodic because of the dreaded resource factor and various bureaucratic issues outside the control of the gardaí. I know of one town of over 20,000 citizens in the Fingal area which has lost its local policing forum as result of funding withdrawal, and this has disconnected the local gardaí from the public. Should this pattern be repeated generally the future will be less than rosy.
Survey details
Gurchard Singh
of the Garda Analysis Service gave some details of a public attitude survey which was conducted professionally involving 1,500 respondents at the end of last year. This survey has shown an 80per cent positive trust rating in the Garda and a 70per cent satisfaction rating.
However, this survey has not been published and that is regrettable because there is speculation that the survey may also contain some dissatisfaction with aspects of the Garda operation. Publishing the material would greatly assist the narrative on public safety.
A very significant question came from authority member Pádraig Costello, who was interested as to whether there was a correlation between the location of (privatised) speed-detection vans and road fatalities.
It should be recognised that the road safety enforcement record of the Garda Síochána has made a superb contribution to the reduction in road deaths over 15 years. The operation of the privatised cameras leaves much to be desired. Quite often they are used as a revenue-gathering device, detecting purely technical breaches of the law and consequently making no contribution to road safety.
But overall a very good opportunity was lost for the commissioner to make a case for resources in an open public forum in a professional and ethical manner.
The commissioner has on previous occasions showed a willingness to refer to the problems posed by the cutbacks relating to the capacity and capability of the organisation. However, she was back on message last Monday, dismissing concerns on station closure as being more than compensated for by other alternative strategies. Interestingly, another murder happened a few short hours later in Dublin’s inner city within a short distance of a closed Fitzgibbon Street Garda station.
It is simply illogical to assume that one can restore capacity while basic numbers are 2,000 short of optimum levels.
It is also a fact that the recruitment process will just about cope with annual retirements and will not be reflected in an on-street presence for years.
Jargon vs substance
There was an overabundance of jargon at the expense of substance. The word “strategy” was used endlessly together with various mentions of “trust”, “trust and confidence”, “modernisation and renewal”, “critical friends” but there was little sense of how these laudable qualities could be translated into on-the-ground actions. Also the chairperson described the meeting as a “conversation”– hardly the role for an oversight body.
This meeting was taking place in the context of an enormous upheaval in the criminal justice area, the sacking of a minister for justice, the departure of a Garda commissioner and the sidelining of the secretary general of the Department of Justice.
The commissioner mentioned the fact that there had been a total of 41 reports conducted into the Garda Síochána since 2005, and these included 10 reports by the Garda Inspectorate consisting of 485 recommendations, which had “framed our modernisation and renewal plan”. The commissioner is extremely critical and probably rightly so of some the recommendations of the inspectorate but she did not mention that fact.
John O’Brien is a former detective chief superintendent