Whether it's to report drug-dealers or illicit smokers, the public is being invited to make that call, writes Rosita Boland
Dial to Stop Drug-Dealing is the name of a new confidential phone line to be launched next Wednesday. Set up and funded by the Blanchardstown Local Drugs Task Force (BLDTF), it will be the first non-Garda-run, anti-drug-dealing phone line.
"Because we're not using the number of a Garda station, we're hoping that people will pick up the phone to report on drug-dealing in Blanchardstown," explains Joe Doyle of the BLDTF. The line is a trial project, which will run until June 13th. The calls can be made anonymously to a call centre and any relevant information passed on to gardaí. While Doyle is hoping that callers will be specifically giving information on drug-dealing in Blanchardstown, he says it's possible there could be calls about drug-dealing throughout Dublin.
"If the project is successful we might be able to set up a national independent phone line," Doyle says.
There are a number of confidential phone lines or, as they're also called, "snooplines" operating in the State. The idea is the same with all of them: the public are invited to ring a toll-free number to report on subjects from anti-social behaviour to fraud, from serious criminal activity to smoking in a non-smoking area. They all operate in a similar way: calls are either taken in person or a message can be left. Some lines, such as Crimestoppers, issue callers with a PIN so that they can phone back later, quote their number and find out if their information was useful.
Crimestoppers is a line which offers money for relevant information. It started in 1998 and is now run by gardaí at the National Bureau for Criminal Investigation and by the Dublin Chamber of Commerce. The Department of Justice matches the funding money put up by the private sector, euro for euro, up to €100,000 a year. The top reward offered, for information leading to an arrest, is €10,000.
"So far, it has never been claimed," says Yvonne Hyland, director of Crimestoppers.
Surprisingly, most callers don't want payment, and only 3 per cent of all callers are paid for information which proves to be relevant. Anything left in the kitty goes to fund publicity campaigns relating to murdered or missing people and those who have been seriously injured in assaults.
Last year, 31 per cent of all calls received by Crimestoppers were to do with its campaigns on five murdered women and five missing women. No arrests were made as a result of the information received, but "it's all pieces in the jigsaw, and helps to create a picture", Hyland says. Its latest major campaign highlights the case of Dubliner Vincent O'Brien (41), from Ballyfermot, who has remained in hospital since three men attacked him in Bluebell, Inchicore, last August, kicking him in the head and upper body. He will need residential care for the rest of his life. No arrests have been made.
The Crimestoppers line is most effective ("99 per cent successful") when the public are asked to identify people on CCTV who have been filmed damaging public property or stealing at petrol station tills. Images from the CCTV footage are used in poster campaigns and shown in other media.
Since March 2004, the Office of Tobacco Control has operated a Smoke-Free Compliance Line. Last year, it received 1,353 calls from the public, relating either to a lack of signs in workplaces about the smoking ban or to breaches of the law.
Iarnród Éireann operates Train Watch on the Dart. Since 2001, a telephone number has been displayed on the Dart and at stations, inviting people to report anti-social behaviour. There are now CCTV cameras in all Dart carriages and these have been used to identify people reported on the Train Watch line. The line's busiest time was on St Patrick's Day last year, when drunk and abusive passengers prompted many calls.
"Convictions were made as a result of the footage," says Clíodhna Ní Fhatharta of Iarnród Éireann.
Compared with other countries, such as the US, where there are many snooplines in operation, including ones for reporting neighbours who hose lawns during a ban, Ireland doesn't have that many. Those we do have tend to be on serious matters.
For everything else, we have talk radio.