COMMENT: Fears Garda cutbacks are hitting the fight against crime

IT HAS got to the stage that when gardaí hold a murder case conference in some areas, there are nearly more senior officers in the room directing inquiries than front-line gardaí to carry out the work.

And when such a division has multiple murder or suspicious death investigations, the pressures mount up.

Add to that the activities of several serious criminal gangs, including violent feuding outfits, and something has to give. “Normally, if we had a murder or suspicious death, we were given the resources and told ‘away you go’,” said a senior officer who works in a large Dublin division which has a multitude of feuding gangs.

“Now, if we have a murder conference I might have six members in front of me and four of us [senior officers] behind the desk. Before, the unit on duty would stay on late and the next unit would come in early. It’s impinging on criminal investigations big time. We’ll have to reduce the service to the people, that’s it.”

He said the days of large-scale swoops on these outfits are gone. “Previously, you would do one to two big operations a year on the feuding gangs. You’d search 18 homes on one side one month, the other side the next month. These ops show them we are in charge, put them on the back foot. You can’t do that anymore and they know it. There’s no money and it’s going to get worse.”

He pointed out that under the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, police officers who receive a credible complaint of a felony, or serious crime, are obliged to investigate. “Failure to do so is illegal and renders the policemen liable to prosecution,” he said.

“Senior detectives have jumped because there is more and more work and less and less resources.”

Department of Justice figures show that the Garda overtime budget was €78.2m and €80.9m in 2010 and 2011, before dropping to €42.4m and €39.6m in 2012 and 2013.

This comes as the strength of the force has fallen: from 14,377 in 2010, to 13,894 in 2011, to 13,424 in 2012 and 13,330 last April.

Martin Callinan, the Garda commissioner, said he does not want numbers to drop below 13,000. This appears likely by the end of the year, given the annual retirement rates: 407 in 2010, 480 in 2011, and 462 in 2012. At the start of the year, 1,200 gardaí were eligible to retire in 2013.

Mr Callinan pointed out that even if the recruitment ban was lifted, it would take two years to train recruits.

Detectives in most regions who spoke to the Irish Examiner said the strain was nearing breaking point.

One in the Eastern division said it was becoming “increasingly difficult” to cope. “We are down to the bone and crime investigation is suffering the most. There has to be some flexibility on overtime with the Government. My real concern is that we don’t want to loose the war against crime.”

THE senior officer said he did not know how he was going to manage for the rest of the year: “What can I do in the run-up the Christmas? You want to have crime patrols out and want to do crime prevention. Rural divisions have huge areas to cover.” He said the 30 extra free hours gardaí will now give as a result of the Haddington Road Agreement came with an equivalent additional cut in the overtime budget.

And he said that because many gardaí will not use those extra hours because of the nature of their duties, the amount of overtime had actually been reduced. He said one or two bad court trials — that go on longer than planned for — eats up overtime, with major consequences for everything else. “Any pro-active operations, the searches and the gang operations, depends on how much is spent on reactive work [murders, prolonged court cases, etc],” he said.

An officer in South East said 14 days notice had to be given to use the extra hours under Haddington and that they could not be used over the weekend. He said it was of no use for murders and urgent searches: “It used to be the case with a murder it would be all hands on deck for a full week and then tail the manpower down. You have witnesses, suspects, CCTV, phones, house-to-house to do. We are cutting corners as we don’t have the people or overtime to do it. And remember they talk about the golden hour, or first 24 hours as key.”

A detective in a national unit said the lack of staff and no overtime meant a list of operations against key targets had to be put on hold.

“Often if interviewing prisoners, in the first interview you let them give their side and move gradually from there. In the second or third you start putting things to them, getting more into the detail. But if you finish at 6pm you have to stand down and a new team takes over. They don’t know anything about the case or the prisoner. You try and explain and they try and take it in, but cracks can appear and the prisoner can see that.”

Officers in some areas, particularly in the south, said the issue of overtime hadn’t affected them. One said the “days of overtime on tap are gone”, saying the “money simply isn’t there”.