Mick Clifford: Forget about PR exercises to beef up policing

The Government should be focusing on recruitment and retention problems in An Garda Síochána rather than indulging in PR exercises dressed up as a show of strength, writes Mick Clifford

Garda Assistant Commissioner Angie Willis, Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe, Chief Superintendent Pat McMenamin, and Justice Minister Helen McEntee on Store St, Dublin, in July. The Government should address the problems bedevilling An Garda Síochána rather than indulging in PR exercises. Picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins

During the week we had a perfect example of policing by public relations. Following three incidents in Dublin city centre over the last month resources were scrambled to present an alleged appropriate response. The Garda national public order unit, the armed support unit, and the mounted unit are all to be deployed to the places where tourists wander and congregate.

Details designed to bamboozle proper analysis were presented. The public order unit will be deployed every day of the week to the city centre on a rota of 12-hour shifts into the early hours of the morning. The armed support and mounted units “will be deployed to enhance garda visibility”, according to Garda headquarters, and patrols on transport networks at peak times will continue.

There were further briefings on the €10m announced for extra policing a few weeks ago, with the news that €2m of that will go towards the public order unit. The armed support unit will be held in reserve, ready to spring into action when required. After the initial announcement it was revealed that the new dispensation will not mean gardaí brandishing weapons at every corner in the centre of Dublin. However, if you were a tourist flying into the country and you happened upon this announcement, surely you’d be inclined to ask the pilot to turn back.

The policing picture suggests a society on the brink of collapse in which gardaí are being sent in to hold things together through guns, horses, and riot gear and as much overtime as it takes to ensure that the elected members of parliament will be able to make it safely through the streets to the seat of government.

Such a scenario would not be unheard of in countries mismanaged by kleptocratic regimes to the point where economies no longer functioned properly. Another announcement this week stated that employment has never been as high in the country.

There are problems, including the problems of success and a failure to keep public services in line with a growing population, but this is no failed state. 

Why then was it necessary to make an announcement that suggested the capital city had gone to pot?

The three incidents that were highlighted were serious. A number of tourists sustained vicious violent attacks. The most serious of these was perpetrated on US national Stephen Termini who was kicked and beaten on Store St in the city centre on July 19.

But it remains the case that Dublin is one of the safest capital cities in Europe. The response of calling in the cavalry, complete with horses, dogs, and riot shields, is primarily a reaction to media coverage during the so-called silly season.

For instance, on the same day Mr Termini was assaulted there was another violent incident in the city centre, again involving a foreign national. This one was actually a stabbing that occurred at 1am that day in the Temple Bar area. The victim was a delivery driver from Bolivia who is in the country to work and contribute to the economy.

The attack on him was barely noticed or commented on. At the time, a media query to the gardaí received the response, “inquiries are ongoing”. A few weeks ago I checked back in with An Garda Síochána as to how the investigation into that was progressing.

I was told: “There are no updates at this time. Investigations are ongoing.”

By contrast, the suspects in the tourist attacks have all been either identified or charged.

Is it a coincidence that An Garda Síochána sprung into action to pursue the perpetrators in the tourist attacks but has been unable to properly advance the case of the stabbed delivery driver?

None of this is to take away from the reality that people do not feel as safe in some parts of the State’s cities as was formerly the case. Since the pandemic, in particular, there is an edgier, or rougher, feel around the centres of places such as Dublin and Cork at particular times.

For the greater part this is an expression of the social problems that were not as visible in the bigger commercial areas heretofore.

Last June, a man sustained a fatal stab wound on Grand Parade in Cork at 7.30pm in the evening. Court reports suggest that both the victim and the suspect lived on the margins of society for one reason or another. Such an incident at that time of day in the city centre would have been virtually unheard of until recent years. 

The fall-out from deep social problems, some of which are interminable but many due to sustained neglect by successive governments, are now becoming more visible to the public at large.

Addressing the policing aspect of these changes, and reassuring the public, should not be beyond a modern police force.

But An Garda Síochána is currently experiencing a resources deficit and a linked morale problem. 

As RTÉ’s Prime Time showed this week, 71 members have left the force so far this year. Last year, it was 108, up nearly threefold from 41 in 2017. The number of available gardaí right now is 13,668, down 600 since 2020. The Government’s target, which is a conservative estimate of what is required, is 15,000 members.

Quite obviously the job is not as attractive as it once was at a time when the labour market is going through the roof. Young people are not willing to put up with substandard working conditions in one form or another for the sake of the secure, pensionable job.

Three gardaí who left the force in recent years told Prime Time of the frustration and stress that the deficit of proper resources had prevented them from doing the work as well as they had wanted.

Attempting to deal with these issues is Commissioner Drew Harris, who was brought in to clean up An Garda Síochána after a series of scandals.

He has been making progress in some areas, but not others. He has a blueprint to work from, the report delivered by the Commission on the Future of Policing. However, it appears that imposing the aspirations and intentions of that document onto the members of An Garda Síochána is running into various difficulties.

Currently, the Garda Representative Association is balloting a vote of confidence in the commissioner, an unprecedented move in a disciplined force. Whatever the outcome of that, the problems now bedevilling An Garda Síochána are far greater than anything to do with Harris.

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If the Government is serious about beefing up policing, it would be much better off to find out why it is becoming difficult to recruit and retain gardaí and address the core of the problem rather than indulging in PR exercises dressed up as a show of strength.