THE POLICING AUTHORITY’S Assessment of Policing Report for 2022 has cautioned that more resources are needed to tackle the growing volume of economic crime.
The report, published today, was generally positive in terms of progress made tackling overall crime in the first year after the Covid-19 pandemic but noted that economic crime is increasing both in Ireland and internationally.
“Economic crime represents a major current and growing challenge for the Garda Síochána,” the report read.
“Despite the dramatic, long-term increase in demand on the organisation, primarily through the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau, there has not been any notable increase in the priority given to resourcing the bureau.”
“This runs counter to statements made as to the priority of this area by Garda management and stated in policy documents.”
A review of economic crime found that the resourcing of the GNECB was “an impediment to the ability of the bureau to carry out its functions effectively”, which was accepted by the government in 2021.
However the report notes that a resourcing plan scheduled for delivery in mid-2021 still has not been delivered and there has been “no real increase in resources” since then.
Work on economic crime was praised in the report, with the caveat that “there is a growing number of cases that are at risk of not being adequately responded to without sufficient resourcing”.
It was also noted that there has also been a significant decrease in murders connected to organised crime in 2022, in contrast to the high levels seen in the years following the murder of David Byrne at the Regency Hotel in 2016.
It was also noted in the report that the pandemic had substantially reduced the number of new garda recruits and that An Garda Síochána cannot “replace those members leaving the organisation as quickly as needed”.
109 gardaí resigned in 2022, while 339 retired.
This was part of a growing number of gardaí leaving the force since 2020, with 448 leaving in 2022 while 370 graduated from Templemore.
Chairperson of the Authority, Bob Collins, wrote in the report’s foreword that the number of gardaí leaving their jobs had been over-analysed.
“Much attention has, understandably, been given to the fact that the number of Garda members resigning before their due retirement date had increased in the past few years.”
“It has come as something of a shock to some, perhaps to many, within the organisation and has generated a degree of concern that may not be entirely warranted. The number resigning in 2022 was 109 which represents 0.8% of the total number of Garda members, a level of turnover that would be the envy of many organisations.”
The report noted that due to a lack of exit interviews of gardaí who were retiring and resigning, conclusions couldn’t be drawn as to why they were leaving the job.
Collins stated that exit interviews are not standard due to the belief that a career as a garda is a lifelong one.
“The absence of exit interviews before now is an inheritance from the assumption that the need for them would not arise. Now it has,” he stated.
However the report speculates that many of those leaving could be pursuing other jobs with better pay and lifestyle benefits.
The reduced number of recruits entering Templemore during the pandemic meant that where normally 2,120 gardaí would have entered the Garda College between 2020 and 2022, the number recruited was 775, a shortfall of 1,345.
A target of 800 recruits entering Templemore was set for 2022, however only 116 recruits started at the college.
Last week the Gardaí launched a recruitment campaign with adverts across social media, radio and television, while the government had set a target of reaching a total of 15,000 garda members.
At the end of March there were a total of 14,036 Garda members and 3,130 Garda staff.
The report concluded that if improvements could be made to the key areas it highlighted there is cause for “confidence in the organisation to deliver substantial change”.
“The improvements made in respect of the response to domestic, sexual and gender based violence, cyber-crime, anti-corruption, and diversity and hate crime are transformational.”
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