‘Culture of expectation’ to keep breath test figures high in gardaí

A Policing Authority report on the breath test scandal is due to say there was a “culture of expectation” in the force to keep figures high.

Authority chair Josephine Feehily said the audit by Crowe Howarth was likely to report that, while there was no evidence of directives from managers, there was an “implicit expectation” of frontline members regarding their performance of breath tests.

An internal Garda report estimated that between 106,177 and 318,530 tests were “inflated” by members between 2009 and 2017.