GARDAÍ IN THE Dublin Metropolitan Region (DMR) have been told that overtime is cancelled for the rest of 2017 due to a budget overrun.

The letter from Assistant Commissioner Pat Leahy, seen by TheJournal.ie, tells Chief Superintendents in the Dublin region that as of today, “under no circumstances” is overtime to be incurred.

It adds that the only exceptions are Operations C-Port and Hybrid.

Operation C-Port provides support at Dublin Port and Operation Hybrid was introduced in 2016 to provide an armed response to organised crime in the capital.

Leahy’s letter says:

No other overtime is authorised and any operations intended on an overtime basis are hereby cancelled. Divisional and District officers will ensure this is strictly adhered.

The Garda Budget for 2017 has been exhausted. All other operations, events, searches, arrest etc for the remainder of 2017 will be performed by the working units.

A follow-up email from one Chief Superintendent told gardaí that while he understood the difficulties of the direction, “necessary duties” would be prioritised.

These include manning counters and telephones in stations, prisoner management and mobile patrol. It adds that gardaí may be returned to their home station from burglary response units, all personnel could be removed from administration duties and all CPD training cancelled.

A Garda source said the cancellation could cause issues over Christmas.

“Planned arrests and operations can all be postponed but it’s the day-to-day business which is resourced completely on overtime that will be the big problems.”

In a statement to TheJournal.ie, An Garda Síochána said that it is “provided with an annual budget which is reviewed on a continual basis to ensure we are working within that budget”.

- With reporting from Michelle Hennessy

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