Top-paid garda sergeants claim €44k in overtime 

In total, the top-10 highest-paid garda sergeants took home a cumulative €439,731 between January and October.

More than €94m in overtime was paid out to gardaí in 10 months, with the top-paid garda sergeants taking home an average of €44,000 in overtime on top of their base salaries.

In total, the top-10 highest-paid garda sergeants took home a cumulative €439,731 between January and October.

The same figure for rank-and-file gardaí over the same 10-month period was €368,574, an average of around €37,000 each.

For inspectors, the figure was also just under €37,000 on average, according to figures released to the Irish Examiner under freedom of information.

Garda overtime can only be paid to members at garda, sergeant, or inspector rank. Overtime payments of €37,000 would see a newly graduated recruit more than double their base salary.

In total, some €94m was paid out over the 10 months, for a total of 2.5m overtime hours, an average rate of €38 per hour.

By far the biggest spend on overtime was within the Dublin Metropolitan Region, at €37m, with €17.5m spent in the eastern region and €11.8m in the northwest.

Altogether, 14,000 garda members made overtime claims over the 10 months.

"The nature of garda work and the requirement that the garda authorities respond, in some cases at short notice, to immediate policing demands, means that there is a necessity to incur overtime expenses to ensure effective policing," a garda spokesperson said.

"There will always be a need for a certain level of overtime to allow An Garda Síochána flexibility when responding to circumstances that require additional resources for specific operations," they added.

In 2020, the total paid in overtime fell to €98m, from €106m in the pre-pandemic days of 2019. The figure for 2018 was €117m.

Pay had increased exponentially from 2015 to 2017, with most of the payments being made in the Dublin divisions.

Earlier this month, garda bosses applied for a €23m emergency budget to cover overtime and pay overspends throughout 2021. 

At the time, garda management said the request had been driven by the continuing demands of policing the pandemic and its restrictions and emergency laws.

The overall garda budget for 2021 is €1.8bn.

The most recent monthly report by Garda Commissioner Drew Harris to the Policing Authority states that at the end of October, the force was just under €15m above its annual overtime budget. Total expenditure on pay was €1.1bn, €966m of which comprised base garda salaries.

A frequent complaint of garda unions has been that overtime payments are necessary due to the force's headcount being insufficient to police the State.

Garda numbers fell every month between May and October of this year, falling to their lowest levels — 14, 369 members — since immediately before the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.