Gardaí beginning to look top heavy but rather light down at street level

DESPITE the apparent euphoria at the news that the gardaí are to recruit more civilians, it seems to be a case of more chiefs and not enough Indians.

The Morris Tribunal was “staggered by the amount of indiscipline and insubordination it has found in the garda force. There is a small, but disproportionately influential, core of mischief-making members who will not obey orders, who will not follow procedures, who will not tell the truth and who have no respect for their officers”.

In the aftermath of this damning indictment two official reports recommended more civilians to release gardaí for real police work, which is badly needed.

While they are heavy on what needs to be done at the top, both reports are very light on what needs to be done on the ground.

The reports, from the Garda Síochána Inspectorate, headed by Chief Inspector Kathleen O’Toole, the former Boston police chief, and the Garda Síochána Advisory Group, chaired by Senator Maurice Hayes, are at least singing from the same hymnbook.

They both want civilians employed throughout the force, all the way up to the level of deputy commissioner. They are also at one in recommending a new post of assistant commissioner for professional standards, three new executive civilian posts as legal adviser, director of human resource management and director of ICT, as well as a civilian director of communications.

While the top job specifications are clearly spelt out, there is a certain vagueness in relation to the ordinary foot-soldiers.

Regionally, both reports want to see appropriate support by civilian staff in areas such as finance, HR and analysis to facilitate the maximum delegation of operational responsibility to the assistant commissioners. I doubt very much if ‘operational’ in this case will mean top brass manning checkpoints or dealing with drunks.

It would appear there will be ready-made slots for civilians — expensive slots — and it’s just a matter of finding the bodies to fill them from either here or abroad. All the new bodies will be executives and will be appointed specifically to complement existing executives.

Of themselves, the new appointees will not release one extra garda on to the streets. When it comes to employing civilians actually to allow gardaí to do the jobs they’re supposed to do, the reports are rather skimpy on detail. They recommend “accelerated” recruitment of civilian support staff so as to release gardaí for operational duties. Justice Minister Michael McDowell was so delighted he said he would discuss their “speedy implementation” with the commissioner, who needn’t hold his breath if they’re going to be as speedily implemented as the 2,000 extra gardaí the minister promised before the last general election.

On that point, the minister was accused this week of massaging the figures in relation to the current strength of the force by including recruits, which meant he and the Government could claim to have reached the target figure of 14,000.

According to Jim O’Keeffe, the Fine Gael Spokesman on Justice, the most recent reply from the minister to a parliamentary question stated there were 12,762 full-time gardaí. The inference was that the minister was telling porkies — perish the thought — by including the 280 trainees he personally welcomed to Templemore, the first time that a justice minister did so. The minister is there usually when the trainees emerge as gardaí after a few weeks.

Jim O’Keeffe maintains that only 38% of the 2,000 promised gardaí materialised, which means there must be another 1,238 ghosts in uniform floating around the place, if we could only see them like the minister apparently can.

Presumably, his reserve force is not what the Garda Inspectorate and advisory group meant when they referred to the “accelerated recruitment of civilian support”. Very definitely, it was not what the general public was left to understand.

Now Michael McDowell wants another type of civilian to join. He wishes to employ crime analysts who would provide intelligence back-up for the main force.

They’ll be able to tell the gardaí that the burglar was small, what kind of after-shave he wore and what’s his favourite tipple. That is, of course, after he’s done your house over. Or worse still, mine.

Mr McDowell announced this specialist unit in almost the same breath in which he disclosed the system of promotion within the gardaí had to be carefully examined because there was concern in the ranks that the only way of securing promotion was, believe it or not, through specialised units.

In the same breath (he’s long-winded), the minister defended the level of garda activity in Limerick city to combat the ongoing violence by rival gang members.

In fact, the gangs are so scared of the gardaí there that a 16-year-old boy was arrested for carrying a Beretta sawn-off shotgun on a city bus on one of the busiest commuter routes last Sunday.

THE day before that, a 15-year-old boy appeared in Limerick Children’s Court after he was arrested by the Emergency Response Unit following a high-speed chase in the wake of a drive-by shooting.

In fact, figures obtained by the Irish Examiner show that shootings in the southside of Limerick city are up by an incredible 145% on the same period last year.

Those figures were revealed by Supt Frank O’Brien who said, in what could be described as an understatement, that this was obviously a matter of concern. The entire country was appalled by the callous shooting and injuring of a five-year-old boy because of the ongoing gang feud in the city. Defence Minister Willie O’Dea said they were combating crime in Limerick “in the same way they are in every other city”.

That’s the point which he chose to ignore. Apart from Dublin, no other city compares with Limerick, and even in the capital the gangs haven’t yet resorted to shooting children or using them to do their dirty work. It is not simply a question of defending the gardaí, but of giving them all they need to combat this very serious problem in Limerick.

Willie O’Dea has said the Garda Commissioner is well aware that the Government will back him 100% as far as overtime money is concerned for resources for the Emergency Response Unit or surveillance.

At this stage it looks as if the commissioner hasn’t asked, or the Government won’t give, because in Limerick the baddies look like they’re winning, which is not just depressing and frustrating for the gardaí but for every law-abiding citizen in this country. Then there was the case of a mother of four in Sligo who was confronted by a man wearing a balaclava and wielding what looked like a shotgun.

She was told when she rang the garda station that her complaint would be dealt with in order of importance. When the gardaí eventually showed up after 37 minutes, the unfortunate woman was told the delay was caused by a change of shifts.

It is irrelevant that it turned out to be a belated Hallowe’en prank last Thursday night; the terrified woman didn’t know that and, more importantly, neither did the gardaí.

A garda spokesman said they were satisfied they had responded “appropriately” and “promptly”, despite the fact that it took them 37 minutes to show up following a very urgent call from a house about five minutes’ drive away .

The words of the first Garda Commissioner, Michael Staines, should be posted up in every station to serve as a reminder: “The Garda Síochána will succeed not by force of arms or numbers, but on their moral authority as servants of the people.”