Garda ombudsman warns it has insufficient funding to tackle 'increasing workload'

The number of complaints fielded by GSoc in 2021 had increased by 13% year on year to more than 2,200.

There was a 50% increase in the number of incidents referred to the Garda Ombudsman which related to a member of the public being injured or dying after an interaction with a serving garda in 2021.

The Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (Gsoc) had received 64 such referrals from the gardaí by the end of November of last year, up from the 43 received in 2020.

Those 2020 figures include the killing of 27-year-old George Nkencho by a member of the Armed Support Unit in west Dublin on December 30 of that year. The Gsoc inquiry into that shooting has yet to conclude more than 12 months later.

The new figure is cited in new correspondence, seen by the Irish Examiner, between Gsoc and the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

The letter from the commission’s director of administration Aileen Healy serves as a response to a similar letter to the PAC from the Department of Justice in October 2021, discussing the additional funding made available to Gsoc last year in order to address the “increasing workload” of the organisation.

The number of complaints fielded by the commission in 2021 had increased by 13% year on year to more than 2,200, Ms Healy said, continuing the upward trend previously noted in 2020, when 1,955 such issues were referred to Gsoc.

She said the “increased complexity” of many of the issues brought to Gsoc's attention “raises serious concerns about Gsoc’s capacity to deal with them in a timely and effective manner and in the context of current workloads”.

Ms Healy said the heightened workloads had come at a time when there had been “no resulting increase” in the number of investigators allocated to the body.

While Gsoc’s funding increased in Budget 2022 by €2.3m up to €13.4m, Ms Healy said the new budget would not be enough to cover the new complaints body, which will serve as a successor to the commission. It will have enhanced powers and is planned under the new Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill.

“It is important to note… that this level of resourcing will only allow Gsoc to deal with its current workload under the existing legislation,” she said.

“These resourcing levels do not take account of additional requirements consequent on the intended transition to the successor complaints body,” she said, adding positioning the new entity as an effective, high-performing oversight body is a matter of “huge concern” to Gsoc.

Meanwhile, Ms Healy’s letter details that 28 of its so-called section 94 investigations – involving alleged breaches of discipline by Garda members – are currently “not being progressed” in any form due to ‘go slow’ strike action being undertaken by 17 investigating gardaí, of superintendent rank and higher.

Some 218 cases, representing 52% of all such investigations, have been impacted by the strike, which dates from last July and relates to a dispute among the higher ranks over an increase in availability allowances for working outside rostered hours.

Ordinarily, such investigations conclude in between 16 and 20 weeks.

“Gsoc is continuing to seek updates from An Garda Síochána, and hopes that the dispute can be resolved without significant further delay,” Ms Healy said.