THE JUSTICE MINISTER has said that “we must do better” in managing the garda command and control system in Dublin after it emerged that hundreds of calls were not responded to and hundreds more 999 phone calls were left unanswered.
Helen McEntee was speaking at the graduation of 87 new gardaí at the Garda College in Templemore this afternoon.
This week The Journal revealed that a log of contacts to the Garda emergency line shows that some callers experienced lengthy waits for a call taker to answer the emergency phone in June, with one individual left on hold for more than 17 minutes on one occasion.
Separately this website also reported this week that more than 500 calls to Dublin’s Garda central control had not been responded to at one point on Tuesday evening, because there were not enough patrolling gardaí available to meet the demand.
The Journal learned today that more than 800 calls were not responded to last night. Sources have said this is a continuation of Tuesday night’s problem.
Sources added that a key factor in the issue is the referring of all calls from the public for assistance to the command and control centres. There are also problems of just incident volume.
The Minister along with Deputy Commissioner Anne Marie McMahon both admitted that the issue was an issue that needed to be addressed.
They also sought to reassure the public while both mentioned that a new system to handle the calls was being rolled out nationwide. They said they were also recruiting new call takers.
“We need to do better, and the guards will say we need to do better and I’ll say we need to do better.
“Where there are significant numbers of calls, that people get the response in the adequate time that they need, because this is in so many cases an emergency.
“We’re not where we want to be on that. But for the vast majority of people, I have to stress that they get a very quick response and quick answer and obviously somebody on the scene with them,” he added.
McMahon said that garda management “are aware of the issues” and that they were “actively trying to analyse those”.
The Deputy Commissioner blamed staffing levels for the issues with the command and control system.
“Staffing levels in the command and control are constantly under review – we have increased the supervision [sergeants and inspectors] right around Dublin.
“In addition to that there are ten call-takers starting next week. We are coming from a position where recruitment all but stalled across all codes, not just in garda uniformed side, and I am very confident that we will be able to reach the required levels,” she said.
The garda command and control call handling system in Dublin was rolled out in 1987 – McMahon said that a new system will be rolled out in the capital shortly.
“It is light years ahead and when we get to roll that out it will be of enormous help in both in terms of the efficiency of the system but also the management reports we can extract from the system.
“That will help us to analyse and to put measures in place should any issues arise,” the deputy commissioner added.
The graduation saw 87 gardaí receive their garda powers and begin their careers in An Garda Síochána.
Of that number 62 of the new gardaí will go to Dublin to city centre stations but also in the suburbs.
The intake began training in November 2022 and started with 92 trainees – three of their number resigned during training and three people were reverted back into the incoming phase of recruitment.
Figures released today show that as of 28 July there are 13,949 serving gardaí, 381 garda reserves and 3,323 garda staff.
There are 289 recruit gardaí in training and a new intake of 175 student gardaí are expected to begin training on 31 July.
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