Youth and minorities a priority for gardaí in 2024

Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said a new “Younger Persons Plan” would be developed this year. File photo: Damien Storan

A plan to meet the “policing needs” of young people and the piloting of local diversity forums to build up relationships with minority groups are among priorities for An Garda Síochána this year.

The Policing Plan 2024 also pledges the creation of a mental health “first aid” network to support the health and wellbeing of garda personnel.

It also commits to addressing the sources of harm in communities, specifically the proliferation of drugs and serious repeat offending. There are also plans to “progress the establishment” of a cyber crime hub in Cavan — which was expected to happen in 2022.

Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said a new “Younger Persons Plan” would be developed this year, with the document outlining that this targeted plan would meet the “policing needs” of younger people.

The plan follows assessments by the Policing Authority in recent years in which it urged An Garda Síochána to develop an “internal strategic approach” as to how the organisation, and gardaí on the ground, engage with young people.

The authority has said this approach needs to be consistent and take into account the “realities and vulnerabilities” of children, whether they are suspects, victims or witnesses. The watchdog said that in its engagement with communities and organisations they came across “significant negative experiences” of policing among young people.

The authority has noted “an almost universally positive experience” of community policing members and juvenile liaison officers. But it also said it had come across widespread allegations that members of other garda units could be “aggressive” or engage in “inappropriate verbal or physical behaviour” with young people.

It said children can be both victims of grooming by local gangs and perpetrators of criminal activity on their behalf.

The policing plan also intends to expand projects with ethnic and minority communities and intends to pilot a divisional diversity forum to bring together representatives and local officers. A particular focus of the forum will be identifying the scale of hate crime and measures to combat it.

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The plan states that a National Criminal Intelligence Framework is being rolled out to assist the detection of crime and organised crime.

In addition, a cybercrime hub based in Cavan is to be progressed. This was planned for 2022 and was intended to add to the existing regional hubs in Cork, Wexford, Galway and Mullingar, but staffing issues are thought to have delayed it.

The plan said the implementation of a security service development plan would continue this year to “strengthen the security and intelligence capacity and capability” of the organisation.

In relation to the wellbeing of personnel, Garda HQ is also planning of a “Mental Health First Aid” network.

Research among gardaí by the Policing Authority, which was published earlier this month, found that while those spoken to acknowledged that approaches to mental health were “changing for the better” there remained some “organisational stigma”.

The report said: “The primary fear expressed was that a negative evaluation would affect current or future career opportunities — this was a particular concern raised among members at a supervisory rank.”