nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

Child Item

Gardai conspire to ignore thousands of reported crimes

EddieN75

Hundreds of frontline gardaí are thought to be implicated in the cancellation of thousands of 999 calls to avoid follow-up inquiries and lessen their workloads.

Among the calls ignored were domestic violence reports.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hundreds-of-gardai-used-whatsapp-to-avoid-999-calls-bkhst6fzz

Find more posts tagged with

Quick Links

Comments

walshb

Niner leprauchan wrote: »

This is such a twist of reality it beggers belief.

Would you like the reality?

You call 999 because your son won't do his homework. The calltaker logs ALL calls. No matter how stupid, you want Gardai, you get Gardai. What's the category? Dvsa or domestic violence.

Gardai arrive, kids doing his homework and parent tells ya too go **** off. Gardai inform dispatcher. The call is then transfered to pulse and the investigating garda must now spend time at a computer updating this 'investigation' which must include a callback to the property. Multiple attempts to obtain a statement of complaint and CCTV. In other words, an absolute waste of Garda time.

So what would happen would be that the Garda at the house would inform the dispatcher that the call is absolutely bull**** and it would be changed to an 'info' call which didn't transfer to pulse.

You need to remember, the system only has so many categories and the calltaker selects one they think appropriate based on the caller.

There's no 'I'm a ****ing moron that needs the Gardai to solve minor problems in my life' category.

Same with 'assault' calls but when you arrive it's a 15 year old brother on 14 year old brother push over the TV remote.

Or a variety of calls made by drunk people, lunatics, the genuinely mad and piss takers including alien sightings and lizard people reports

A truly great post..

All I wanted to say, but wouldn’t have put it so succinct as this.

Wilmol

Um excuse me? Who’s going to check the car drivers for tax and insurance if gardai are too busy responding to calls and writing reports…

ineedeuro

Wilmol wrote: »

Um excuse me? Who’s going to check the car drivers for tax and insurance if gardai are too busy responding to calls and writing reports…

Do you not think checking cars have insurance is worthwhile? Otherwise every clown in ireland would go without

[Deleted User]

Besides the nothingburger calls Niner Leprechaun described, was there serious cases ignored?

Did guards ignore soon-to-be victims of violence? Even one incidence is a scandal that should result in firings.

zerosugarbuzz

Niner leprauchan wrote: »

This is such a twist of reality it beggers belief.

Would you like the reality?

You call 999 because your son won't do his homework. The calltaker logs ALL calls. No matter how stupid, you want Gardai, you get Gardai. What's the category? Dvsa or domestic violence.

Gardai arrive, kids doing his homework and parent tells ya too go **** off. Gardai inform dispatcher. The call is then transfered to pulse and the investigating garda must now spend time at a computer updating this 'investigation' which must include a callback to the property. Multiple attempts to obtain a statement of complaint and CCTV. In other words, an absolute waste of Garda time.

So what would happen would be that the Garda at the house would inform the dispatcher that the call is absolutely bull**** and it would be changed to an 'info' call which didn't transfer to pulse.

You need to remember, the system only has so many categories and the calltaker selects one they think appropriate based on the caller.

There's no 'I'm a ****ing moron that needs the Gardai to solve minor problems in my life' category.

Same with 'assault' calls but when you arrive it's a 15 year old brother on 14 year old brother push over the TV remote.

Or a variety of calls made by drunk people, lunatics, the genuinely mad and piss takers including alien sightings and lizard people reports

Its a sad state of affairs that the Gardai Siochana has come to be in this sorry state. It has been beyond me for a long time why people still compete, despite the low wages and difficult conditions, to be part of this organisation. I genuinely would like to know why, maybe someone can enlighten me. The older garda that I would have known, point at the Charlie Haughie era as when the rot set in in the force.

Wilmol

ineedeuro wrote: »

Do you not think checking cars have insurance is worthwhile? Otherwise every clown in ireland would go without

As they should. You’re supporting their practices because they can charge what they want which is unfair. I wonder how many would have insurance if it wasn’t mandatory. Obviously to you checking tax and insurance is more important than saving people from scumbags foot on top of them or knife attacks. Let me guess you’re 40+?

ineedeuro

Wilmol wrote: »

As they should. You’re supporting their practices because they can charge what they want which is unfair. I wonder how many would have insurance if it wasn’t mandatory. Obviously to you checking tax and insurance is more important than saving people from scumbags foot on top of them or knife attacks. Let me guess you’re 40+?

What? None of that made sense

ineedeuro

zerosugarbuzz wrote: »

Its a sad state of affairs that the Gardai Siochana has come to be in this sorry state. It has been beyond me for a long time why people still compete, despite the low wages and difficult conditions, to be part of this organisation. I genuinely would like to know why, maybe someone can enlighten me. The older garda that I would have known, point at the Charlie Haughie era as when the rot set in in the force.

Years and years and years of government underfunding.

The biggest change is the public in general stopped supporting the Gardai, they would prefer to go against them than help them.
Look at today, a sc*mb*g will be doing something, Garda comes in and it’s the video of him online and then he gets the basking

Calhoun

The Gardai have always been a little club the protected its own, they have lost respect from the public due to their own actions, you don't even have to look to the likes of the corruption in Donegal, phone recordings, the Alan Shatter scandal , the Credit Union, or even the Maurice McCabe scandal.

You have the likes of the GRA, pissing and moaning about the likes of mandatory drug testing which i would have thought for a professional they would have or crap like this.

Respect is a two way street and when both rank and file and senior members take this seriously they will be given it.

Muahahaha

Edz87 wrote: »

Besides the nothingburger calls Niner Leprechaun described, was there serious cases ignored?

Did guards ignore soon-to-be victims of violence? Even one incidence is a scandal that should result in firings.

What Niner Leprechaun described was instances of 999 calls that are/were legitimately cancelled for good reasons and logged as such. Out of 3,000 calls they found just over 1,000 that were cancelled for legitmate reasons and there is no problems with this.

What this investigation is about isnt what Niner Leprachaun described, its about genuine 999 calls not being responded to, many of which involved domestic violence. The investigation is ongoing but so far they have uncovered 600 calls out of a total of 3,000 999 calls that should have been responded to. That is 20% or one in five of the 3,000 999 calls they examined not receiving proper Garda attention, for which the Garda Commissioner has yesterday apologised for-

The Garda Commissioner has publicly apologised to domestic violence victims who made emergency calls for help but did not receive the standard of service from gardaí that they required and to which they were entitled.

Drew Harris was addressing the Policing Authority after a garda inquiry into how 999 calls were dealt with found that more than 600 emergency calls in 2019 and 2020 were cancelled before there was an appropriate policing response.

What is being investigated has nothing to do with what Niner Leprachaun outlined in post #2, it is far more serious than that.

[Deleted User]

pah wrote: »

Don't forget to action those KPI's for the stakeholders :rolleyes:

I don't know why your being so condascending to the suggestion. After all its your tax money being spent on an inefficient organisation.

They have Administration/HR/Legal/Compliance like everyone else. To have rank gardai doing Admin work is a waste of resources.

Some peoples attitude really boggles me.

Calhoun

Northernlily wrote: »

I don't know why your being so condascending to the suggestion. After all its your tax money being spent on an inefficient organisation.

They have Administration/HR/Legal/Compliance like everyone else. To have rank gardai doing Admin work is a waste of resources.

Some peoples attitude really boggles me.

More than likely a serving member or related to a member/ex member. Its similar wagon circling ****e you see in the US. They are seemingly above reproach because of the job that they do.

ineedeuro

Northernlily wrote: »

I don't know why your being so condascending to the suggestion. After all its your tax money being spent on an inefficient organisation.

They have Administration/HR/Legal/Compliance like everyone else. To have rank gardai doing Admin work is a waste of resources.

Some peoples attitude really boggles me.

THe problem with the Gardai is they are massively underfunded. If they actually got the funds they need people would be crying because of the tax bill.

You can't underfund an organisation for year and years and then complain when they struggle to meet the demands required of them.

Something has to give.

Calhoun

I think the problem the guards are facing is that even though they are underfunded there is a culture of keeping things in house until the bubble up. That is not helping rank and file members and only builds a stick for their own back from a public perception perspective.

You see stuff like the below and it just adds up to the view of them not being a professional force and easy to believe that the serving members are responsible for the likes of dropped calls rather than underfunding and unrealistic targets.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/crime/gardas-anti-corruption-unit-flies-in-face-of-principle-that-force-shouldnt-investigate-itself-without-scrutiny-says-policing-watchdog-40580499.html

[Deleted User]

Wilmol wrote: »

As they should. You’re supporting their practices because they can charge what they want which is unfair. I wonder how many would have insurance if it wasn’t mandatory. Obviously to you checking tax and insurance is more important than saving people from scumbags foot on top of them or knife attacks. Let me guess you’re 40+?

Strange reference to age there.

ineedeuro

Calhoun wrote: »

I think the problem the guards are facing is that even though they are underfunded there is a culture of keeping things in house until the bubble up. That is not helping rank and file members and only builds a stick for their own back from a public perception perspective.

You see stuff like the below and it just adds up to the view of them not being a professional force and easy to believe that the serving members are responsible for the likes of dropped calls rather than underfunding and unrealistic targets.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/crime/gardas-anti-corruption-unit-flies-in-face-of-principle-that-force-shouldnt-investigate-itself-without-scrutiny-says-policing-watchdog-40580499.html

Who doesn't think the Gardai are underfunded? anyone I talk to are 100% aware they are underfunded.

The Gardai are damned if they do and damned if they don't. They create a unit to investigate which release reports which condemn some of the actions. Yet if they didn't release these reports they would be told by everyone they are hiding everything.

People who want to find fault will find fault, of course the Gardai are not crystal clean either, but as I said not sure what people want when year on year they are underfunded, don't have enough members and very little support from the public.

ineedeuro

fvp4 wrote: »

Strange reference to age there.

I was more interested in what this meant "saving people from scumbags foot on top"

maestroamado

EddieN75 wrote: »

The article author claims to have proof of "over 1000 priority one calls which includes domestic violence, assault and burglaries"

"Senior Gardai believe it may be necessary to initiate disciplinary proceedings against a large number of front line officers who requested cancellation of the calls"

"Security sources believe the issue has the potential to become a significant problem for Drew Harris"

Either Harris goes or he sacks whoever responsible, no need for any other disciplinary action....

Calhoun

ineedeuro wrote: »

Who doesn't think the Gardai are underfunded? anyone I talk to are 100% aware they are underfunded.

The Gardai are damned if they do and damned if they don't. They create a unit to investigate which release reports which condemn some of the actions. Yet if they didn't release these reports they would be told by everyone they are hiding everything.

People who want to find fault will find fault, of course the Gardai are not crystal clean either, but as I said not sure what people want when year on year they are underfunded, don't have enough members and very little support from the public.

No no you see you misunderstand when a policing authority setup to stop corruption on the force calls you out you have a problem.

If they want support and the country to be a little bit more sympathetic they would want to get their house in order. They can be underfunded and still an honest force but you loose sympathy very fast when you see some of the headlibes come out and the general apathy from the force.

You would think at times in this country that they only are interested in policing when it's a person of money that's impacted.

BrianD3

I haven't been following this very closely - would it be a fair summary to say this debacle is the predictable result of chronic under resourcing plus management failures leading to a malaise and drop in morale in the force which leads to corner cutting and ignoring of duties by some individual Gardai as a survival strategy to get through the day.

if so, it is an issue in other parts of the public service too. .

Domestic violence is a "trendy" issue which is probably a factor in the media interest in this. Hard to believe that these practices in the force are limited to domestic violence investigations only.

hierro

General public expect more transparency and accountability which requires investment in people and systems, neither cheap and not envisaged anytime soon. This mobility service is being flown but in reality that service will contribute nothing to policing on the road. Any call of substance costs time, more time than anyone outside the service can imagine.

Lean sigma, the work isn't a factory line but its processes needs examination and refinement and streamlining.

TallGlass2

When you are using CAD which is based on MSDOS which in itself retired 20 years ago and looks like the below, yet ignore as an organisation repeated attempts to tell you to update it, then your going to have issues.

Let alone the question of why it is we are using an MSDOS system that is retired 20 years to take 999 calls.

On the flip side of this that no one has mentioned is that theoretically you could have calls that have been answered by dispatch that no one has any idea of either.

Wilmol

ineedeuro wrote: »

I was more interested in what this meant "saving people from scumbags foot on top"

Dublin city center is filled with scumbags attacking people and literally walking around with knives in their hands but the gards are too busy checking tax from 1 street over so people end up in hospitals with injuries or end up dying. Which is easier? You literally cannot deny that because these are facts.

Muahahaha

John Mooney reports on this story on the front page of todays Sunday Times
As it stands the investigation is looking at a total of 22,595 cancelled 999 calls made to Gardai throughout 2019-2020
So far they have looked at 3,125 calls which were 999s 'Priority 1' relating to victims of domestic abuse. Of those 3,125 cancelled calls they have now identified that more than 600 of them were cancelled for an illegitimate reason and that Gardai did not give the 999 call an adequate response
The Gardai are now moving to examining the remaining 19,475 cancelled 999 calls and these relate to house burglaries, assaults and other offences

From the first sampe of 3,125 cancelled 999 calls we now know that 20% of them were cancelled for illegitimate reasons. If the same trend follows for the remaining calls then we are looking at somewhere in the order of 4,500 people who rang 999 in an emergency and did not receive an adequate response. This is serious stuff because it is highly likely that they are gong to uncover people who were the victims of violent assaults and burglaries in motion not getting an adequate response

ineedeuro

Wilmol wrote: »

Dublin city center is filled with scumbags attacking people and literally walking around with knives in their hands but the gards are too busy checking tax from 1 street over so people end up in hospitals with injuries or end up dying. Which is easier? You literally cannot deny that because these are facts.

No they are not facts. Do you understand what the word "fact" means?

Oranage2

I remember hearing a few 999 calls, garda would ask the usually traveler woman whose husband was smashing up the place if she'd press charges, cops show up she doesn't. She rings again and the garda will they sent someone already and hangup

Wilmol

ineedeuro wrote: »

No they are not facts. Do you understand what the word "fact" means?

Yeah perfectly. Just because you said so doesn't make it true.

Calhoun

Article In the mail that it looked like there was an attempt to cover up the 999 numbers, report currently with Humphries on it.

Potential-Monke

Oranage2 wrote: »

I remember hearing a few 999 calls, garda would ask the usually traveler woman whose husband was smashing up the place if she'd press charges, cops show up she doesn't. She rings again and the garda will they sent someone already and hangup

People have no idea how often this happens, and not just limited to the travellers. Where I was based, you would get a guaranteed 5 calls per nights from 1 "lady", a woman in her 60's(?) who was a raging alcoholic and had a raging alcoholic "partner". They would be sloshed by 4pm and the calls would start then. Get him out. We get him out. She leaves him back in. Get him out. We get him out, she leaves him back in, repeat. And that was just 1 couple. I lost count, in the first 2 years alone, of people who refuse to make a statement after the fact or refuse help when you get there. Problem is you have to attend each and every time because this happens otherwise. I'd like to see how many of the eventual final number are repeat "customers" who never assist.

And it's not just domestic violence. If you're reporting a crime, you need to be willing to go to court and give evidence if a suspect is caught. If not, then it shouldn't be an incident imo. Too many people ring the Gardai and expect them to do everything and beyond, but without actually helping.

Couple that with the fact that they're under-resourced, don't have proper kit (the stab vests were throw aways from the UK police who upgraded to proper ones), no body cams yet (we were screaming for them in 2015), the second weakest pepper spray available, tasers only for the RSU. Add in the fact that a 10 minute call can lead to hours upon hours of paperwork and investigation, but you don't get the time to do it because there are too many calls.

Then you have all the other duties that you get drafted in for, jury service, court guard, public office, helping sheriffs, the RSA and councils for road related stuff, parades, civil disputes which have nothing to do with Gardai but they still have to attend, driving "troubled" kids around looking for a place to put them for the night, interviews that can take hours, searches for other units because they need more numbers... It just goes on and on and on. And there is rarely a break depending on your station, and you'd be lucky to get a break on the day shifts.

It doesn't surprise me that some calls were cancelled, it's bound to happen, they actually can't attend every single call, and no doubt you've heard of people being asked to call to the station to report something (usually if it happens in the city centre and it's a theft from person or something "minor" like that).

I agree with people that we need to get the Gardai back to policing work only, but I fear it's gone so far that it would be impossible to do. There's nobody to replace the Gardai in situations where they shouldn't be involved. From 5pm on Friday, state child supports close and don't open until Monday, so any kid requiring help is literally held in a station until a space can be found for them in some house somewhere. Myself and another Garda had to take 6 hours out of our shift one night to drive a kid to one of these places, and that was the nearest one. Same can be said for psychiatric services over the weekend, it closes and has a bare skeleton crew who are reluctant to take in anyone new because they don't have the support they need over the weekend.

I dunno, even just discussing it here is bringing back some bad memories, fair play to the good Gardai who are sticking with it, I couldn't, and that was 5 years ago when it wasn't as bad as it is now. And €31k starting wage now?! I wouldn't do that job again for anything less than €100k a year, such is the stress it causes.

[Deleted User]

Potential-Monke wrote: »

And €31k starting wage now?! I wouldn't do that job again for anything less than €100k a year, such is the stress it causes.

I was wondering when you'd bring up the wages issue. Seems like every problem with public services they manage to sneak that nugget in as well.

Since people are queuing up to join for "only" €31k, seems like the salaries isn't an issue at all so not sure why you had to bring it up.