OVER €54 MILLION was spent on garda overtime in the first 10 months of this year.

Figures released to TheJournal.ie through a Freedom of Information request show that the bill for the Dublin Metropolitan North Central Division came out on top at €8.2 million, up from over €5 million last year.

The increase in overtime has been partly driven by the extra resources deployed following the Kinahan-Hutch feud, which has been ongoing since the shooting of David Byrne in Dublin’s Regency Hotel in February.

Members of the Garda Emergency Response Unit stand by a garda checkpoint in Dublin Sam Boal Sam Boal

Overall over €34 million was spent on overtime for the six division in Dublin, while Louth spent the most outside of Dublin at €1.9 million.

The Cork West division spent the least amount on overtime – with €257,000 spent between 1 January and 31 October.

Gardaí stated that a number of police led operations required extra overtime resources, including anti-crime and anti-burglary initiatives such as Operation Anvil and Operation Thor, which target organised crime in Ireland.

The below table gives a breakdown of the overtime expenditure for the 29 Operational Garda Divisions between 1 January and 31 October 2016:

An Garda Síochána An Garda Síochána

(To see a larger image of the above table, click here)

The Garda Freedom of Information office noted that, “The nature of garda work and the requirements that the Garda authorities respond, in some cases at short notice, to immediate policing demands means that there is a necessity to incur overtime expenses to ensure effective policing.

Accordingly, there will always be a need for a certain level of overtime to allow An Garda Síochána flexibility when responding to circumstances that require additional resources for specific operations.

“These additional resources will have to be over and above those available from gardaí on rostered duty thus ensuring the continuation of normal policing duties unabated.”

Mark Stedman Mark Stedman

Overtime is only payable to members at garda, sergeant and inspector rank.

The basic garda pay can increase by more than when overtime, unsocial hours payments, and other allowances are included.

Gardaí also stated that the figures provided refer to the period that the overtime was paid out and not necessarily that period of time that the cost was incurred.

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