Failure to supervise front-line Garda a risk to force – Commissioner

The failure to supervise front-line Garda teams properly had been at the centre of some of the force’s serious problems and it remained a current risk for the organisation, acting Garda Commissioner Dónall Ó Cualáin has said.

The Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (Agsi) has also expressed its concern that large numbers of sergeants and inspectors, who supervise rank and file gardaí, are eligible to retire; a development that would worsen the lack of supervision.

Currently, there are 1,800 sergeants in the Garda, with 365 having 30 years or more experience and so entitled to retire at any time on full pension. And there are 263 inspectors in the force, some 91 of whom are eligible to retire at any time.

Agsi president Antoinette Cunningham said her members were being asked to perform so many additional tasks they had become very stressed. In remarks addressed to Mr Ó Cualáin at Agsi’s annual conference in Tullow, Co Carlow, she added that her members’ supervision of those at garda rank was suffering.

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“We are being asked to double and triple job and, as well as front-line supervision, are also being given additional [tasks] like community policing, which are jobs in their own right,” she said.

“The current shortage of sergeants and inspectors is at crisis point.”

Sergeants were being moved around to fill posts on a temporary basis. But, said Ms Cunningham, this was simply adding to the stress levels across the Garda organisation.

In remarks that underline the progress the Garda still must make to emerge from a series of controversies over recent years, Mr Ó Cualáin shared Agsi’s concerns about the lack of sergeants and inspectors to supervise front-line gardaí properly.

Complaints

He told the conference he had recently embarked on a tour of Garda districts nationwide and complaints about the lack of middle management were made everywhere he went.

Recent controversies around the inflating of breath test data, errors in the Garda’s homicide figures and even shortcomings in policing in Co Cavan raised by whistleblower Sgt Maurice McCabe all involved a lack of supervision to some degree.

While Mr Ó Cualáin did not state having too few Garda sergeants and inspectors was the root or primary cause of those problems, he said a lack of supervision was a common factor. And he agreed with assertions by Agsi that serious shortcomings remained with supervision in the Garda.

“We realise that it is a big risk for the organisation,” he said, adding shortages of sergeants and inspectors were a legacy of the recruitment moratorium during the recession.

“Recruitment has started apace again and that is very welcome. We welcome the fact there are all these young people coming into stations throughout the country. We do need additional supervisors.”

He added the Garda was currently in talks with Government to increase the number of sergeants in the ranks and it was hoped a new wave of appointments to sergeant rank would be made during the summer.

The Garda Inspectorate has repeatedly highlighted the lack of supervision by sergeants of gardaí as a major problem in the Garda. It has seen inexperienced gardaí being asked to investigate very serious crimes, up to and including rape, despite having no training for such work and not being supervised and guided by more experienced colleagues.

In one of its reports on how the Garda investigates crime, the Garda Inspectorate said in the absence of supervision from sergeants and others up the ranks, inexperience and even probationer gardaí turned to each other for advice on best practice when working.