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THE INDEPENDENT REPORT into the controversy surrounding gardaí cancelling more than 200,000 emergency 999 calls says that supervision of officers was either not followed or not effective.
An internal garda review previously said that more than 200,000 calls were cancelled over a two-year period between 2019 and 2020.
The external examination was published by the Policing Authority today.
It notes that the training gardaí receive in call taking and dispatch is extensive, and members should have understood the limited circumstances when incidents could be cancelled.
It says policies and procedures were in place that should have identified unwarranted cancelled incidents.
“This would suggest that supervision, quality assurance checks and procedures for the performance management of individuals within regional control rooms and local stations were either not followed or not effective,” the report reads.
The document notes that the discovery of additional non-compliant incidents even after it came to national attention that hundreds of thousands of calls had been cancelled suggests that the level of supervision, quality assurance checks and the performance management of officers within the regional control rooms is “weak”.
“This presents a serious ongoing risk to the Garda Síochána,” the report says.
The Policing Authority commissioned the report as part of the ongoing investigation into the cancelled calls.
It is meeting Garda Commissioner Drew Harris later today to discuss the findings and recommendations in the report.
The report was authored by Derek Penman, a former assistant chief constable of Police Scotland who has over 34 years policing experience.
Penman notes that the absence of call recording at local stations is a “serious vulnerability”.
The issue is made more acute by the lack of safeguards to ensure that all incidents are recorded and appropriately managed.
The document notes that there were cancelled incidents where gardaí responded and provided a service to victims. However, in some cases, officers requested dispatchers to cancel incidents and avoided following-up.
There were also incidents where the information provided by callers was not accurately recorded. This meant gardaí were dispatched to the wrong locations, and callers could not be re-contacted.
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I can’t even afford a bike shed
Here’s an interesting idea kind of like a mandatory housing savings scheme, where a percentage of every young worker’s pay goes into a dedicated fund that can only be used for buying a home. It could work similarly to a pension but specifically for housing, and the government could top it up or offer incentives when it’s time to buy.
It could have certain benefits. It forces people to save, builds a habit of financial discipline, and ensures that when they’re ready to buy, they have a solid starting point. It could also help stabilise the housing market by ensuring first-time buyers have real purchasing power without relying entirely on high-risk mortgages.
It could have challenges. Not everyone wants to buy a home, at least not right away, so would need flexiblity. And maybe renters have access to it to help with deposits or rent-to-buy schemes? And would people see it as sn overreach, forcing them to save when they might have other financial priorities?
It could work if structured well maybe with opt-outs for those who genuinely don’t want to buy. But with the way things are now, where many struggle to save because rent eats up so much of their income, something like this could be a long-term game-changer.
A typical mortgage is now cheaper than renting. People just have to see life as it is and not be misled by ideology politicians.
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