HOMELESS hungry children call in to Dublin Garda stations each evening seeking accommodation and food, the annual conference of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI) has been told.
The conference also heard criticism of politicians who made "self righteous" comments about sexual assault cases but did not provide finance for child welfare in Dublin, where child prostitution was increasing.
An AGSI national executive member, Mr Michael Kennelly, said that outside normal office hours Garda stations in Dublin offered the only safe refuge for homeless children and teenagers.
"It is common in city stations to have one or two children or teenagers call each night after 8 p.m. looking for the night social worker. They have not been sexually or physically abused. They are homeless, no money in their pockets and an empty stomach and nowhere to go," he said.
"They have usually been told to wait until after 8 p.m. to come to the Garda station. The welfare service has no place open at that hour so a Garda station is the only place to go."
He said there were indications that the increasing number of homeless teenagers was leading to an increase in child prostitution in Dublin. "Child prostitution is a large business," he said.
He called on the Government to provide "the necessary resources for the protection of children and the promotion of their welfare".
The conference also called for better welfare provisions for gardai, particularly those who had "been affected by violent incidents.
Delegates were told there are only four full time welfare officers for a force of almost 11,000 members and that the Garda Representative Association and Benevolent Fund, both funded out of members subscriptions, provided these officers with mobile telephones.
A Dublin south central delegate, Sgt Tim Doyle, said there was a need for more gardai to be trained as "peer supporters" to help officers in their own stations who had experienced violent or stressful incidents.
Sgt Doyle said gardai "more than any group in society need looking after". He added "Any of us who still applaud the macho image should be ashamed of ourselves. Our job is unique, stretching human endeavour to the maximum, teetering from exhilaration to depression."
He had recently encountered a young officer who had come across a robbery in progress, had been the subject of a vicious attack and had had to draw his baton to defend himself. He said the garda was "ashen faced", but, his condition had eased after he talked with a more experienced officer trained in pear support.
There were still too few gardai trained in supporting other officers who were experiencing stress.
There was only one peer support officer in the Kevin Street/ Kilmainham district, which had 200 officers, many of whom had experience of dangerous and violent incidents.
The conference supported a motion calling for more officers trained in scene of crime examination for rural divisions.
A Sligo/Leitrim delegate, Sgt Pat Neary, said there was a shortage throughout the force of trained scene of crime officers, and this was causing difficulties in investigations.
"It is commonplace to experience long delays before the arrival of the examiner and this, of course, is no fault whatever of the particular individual," he said.
"This is most unsatisfactory, as well as a cause of great embarrassment for the local gardai in their efforts to make reasonable explanations to injured parties where crime scenes have to be preserved, and is, of course, made much worse when the preserved scene is situated in a private dwelling."