Garda watchdog to address traffic complaints

The Garda watchdog is concerned at the continuing high number of complaints from the public regarding road traffic incidents involving gardaí.

This includes a 50% jump in the number of fatalities of citizens in road incidents last year.

The Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission is conducting an examination of road traffic cases and will report on the matter later this year.

Commissioner Kieran Fitzgerald stressed that just because a case involved gardaí it did not mean they had done anything wrong.

The research will attempt to establish the number of cases in which Garda behaviour might have been a factor, and will seek to analyse any reasons — including training of Garda drivers — for this.

Figures in the commission’s annual report for 2011 show that 15% of the 2,275 complaints in 2011 involved road policing. It also shows there were 23 fatalities in 2011, compared to 15 in 2010, about half of them road traffic incidents.

The GSOC said it was concerned at the continuing high percentage of road traffic cases.

Incoming GSOC chairman Simon O’Brien said the GSOC was looking at data from the five years since the commission was set up to look for emerging trends and would express its views later in the year.

The report shows:

n2,275 complaints in 2011, compared with 2,258 in 2010 and 2,097 in 2009;

nComplaints involved 6,230 allegations in 2011, 4,931 in 2010, and 3,509 in 2009;

nOf the 7,076 complaints closed in 2011, 2,199 did not require investigation, 1,882 were inadmissible, 1,553 were not deemed breaches of discipline by the Garda Commissioner, 154 led to disciplinary action, 17 cases were referred to the DPP, and four ended in prosecution

The data shows 26% of complaints involved neglect of duty and 12% discourtesy.

Mr O’Brien said the GSOC had sent a paper to Justice Minister Alan Shatter seeking changes in the law which would allow many minor complaints, often covered in these two categories, to be reclassified and allow the GSOC to deal with them more speedily.

He said this might mean classifying them as a “service failure” rather than a complaint against a garda, which may allow the matter to be dealt with more efficiently.

“If you get to situation where a non-return of a phonecall becomes a complaint, you go down a very bureaucratic process — it seems a bit disproportionate to me,” said Mr O’Brien.

He said the GSOC’s longest-running investigations — into claims of collusion between gardaí and drug dealer Kieran Boylan — was progressing and there would be either a file to the DPP or a report by the autumn.

“It’s at the upper end of complexity and it deals with some very sensitive issues, so its not surprising it’s taken some time,” said Mr O’Brien. “But I think four years in any inquiry is an awful long time.”

* www.gardaombudsman.ie