Commissioner: Critical that Garda positions be filled as vacancies pose 'profound risks'

The Garda Commissioner yesterday said she has written to the Government calling for the “immediate appointment” of 46 senior officers — saying that the continuing vacancies posed “profound risks” to policing and security services.

Nóirín O’Sullivan said these “critical vacancies” also needed to be filled in order to address the issues of poor investigations and supervision highlighted in the O’Higgins report.

She told the Policing Authority she had written to the secretary general of the Department of Justice seeking the appointment of the remaining two assistant commissioners, 18 chief superintendents, and 26 superintendents. The Garda chief also pointed out only 240 of the 390 established positions of inspector were currently filled.

Authority chairperson Josephine Feehily said they had written to the Government urging it to fill the sanctioned vacancies — but said the commissioner’s figures seemed “on the high side”. She said the authority’s main concern was that the appointments function be transferred from the Government to the authority.

Yesterday’s public meeting was the second one dealing with the O’Higgins report, which examined failings in the Cavan-Monaghan division in 2007 and 2008.

Ms Feehily and other authority members questioned the commissioner and her team about the systems in place to ensure the proper investigation, recording, and supervision of crimes and when a performance management system for all ranks would be in place.

Authority member Noel Brett said the O’Higgins report made for “fairly dismal reading”, and said the report indicated poor supervision “may be a systemic issue nationally”.

Ms O’Sullivan said changes had been made to the Pulse computer system, assigning specific members for investigation and supervision and that their actions could be tracked. She said they were examining the roles and responsibilities of sergeants.

Member Maureen Lynott asked about the systems for holding senior officers accountable for their performance. Ms O’Sullivan said there was a structure in place, but not, as of yet, the technology to support it.

She also pointed out that it was “very difficult” to hold people to account when there were so many gaps and people doing multiple jobs.

Pushed by Ms Lynott on her main performance concerns, the commissioner said: Accuracy of recording of crime; reduction of crime; increased detection of crime, and treatment of victims. She said performance management was a “bug bear” of An Garda Síochána.

Assistant Commissioner Jack Nolan said it was “difficult for some [Garda] representative associations to take”, but said they were “planning” to introduce the system in the third quarter this year.

Members of the authority disagreed with propositions from the Garda team regarding the relationship between inadequate numbers of sergeants and inspectors and poor supervision of investigations. Moling Ryan said the O’Higgins report found that poor supervision of investigations was “nothing to do with numbers”.

Authority member Vicky Conway said in one case in the O’Higgins report, 20 requests for information were made by a supervisor, but they were not complied with by the garda.

Ms O’Sullivan said changing the culture of accountability was a “huge” issue and key to this was moving from “a blame culture to a learning culture”.