Garda reserve should be confined to undercover role as the hidden eye of full-time force

I AM no expert on what is required of the Garda Siochána effectively to keep the peace.

Unfortunately, this is something the garda reserve and I would have in common.

Training and certification are generally required for most skilled jobs.

To put unqualified individuals in a uniform is an insult to the full-time gardaí and a serious risk to the reservist and garda alike.

If you ever witnessed the escalation of a confrontation involving a number of people and a garda, you would understand the danger.

I was witness to such an event, and I was highly impressed by the way the garda kept his head and controlled a situation in which he was outnumbered and under pressure.

Clearly, this is the result of training and experience. To pretend that anything even approaching this level of professionalism could be achieved in a week of training and the experience acquired on two hours a week is a dangerous delusion. Much has been made of increasing ‘visibility’ with the reserve. They could certainly walk around looking like officers and be visible in that sense, but they would not be able to act like officers because they would not possess the expertise necessary to manage delicate situations.

As I witnessed first-hand, only a highly-skilled individual can safely control confrontational situations which are, by their nature, dangerously unpredictable.

However, as much as I doubt the ability of a non-professional to keep the peace when dealing directly with the public, I do believe the reservists could be employed to reduce crime, without coming into contact with them.

This could be achieved by modifying a successful strategy used in New York city whereby crime is mapped out according to location and time in order to identify hotspots. Patrols are then dedicated to these particular places.

This simple strategy of directly targeting problem areas has proven tremendously effective. Two modifications would be made to this strategy.

Firstly, hotspot patrols would be carried out by undercover, plainclothes reservists. Secondly, the reservists would not make their presence known, or approach any member of the public. Rather, on witnessing suspicious activity, they would notify the gardaí on a dedicated line.

In this way, the safety of reservists and gardaí would not be compromised, which is the greatest flaw of any proposal involving reservists interacting with the public.

The gardaí would be dispatched immediately and arrive at the scene within a few minutes.

The law-breakers would be at a disadvantage because they would not suspect they were under surveillance. By simply being in position to witness and report crime, or the movement of known criminals, reservists would provide gardaí with the information they needed to intervene with skilful authority. As the invisible eyes of the gardaí, the undercover reservists would increase the effectiveness of the full-time force by increasing the flow of actionable information. With basic training, the information the reservists provided would be reliable.

Deployed carefully, a few reserve teams could cover more ground or monitor more surveillance targets than a single garda unit, which could then act on information received.

Ella Goddin

86 Barrack Street

Cork