Garda summit looking at how best to tackle criminal gangs

The 25 organised crime gangs operating across the State often commanded respect through fear and surrounded themselves with people who did not "crumble" easily, Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan has said.

Speaking at the opening of a two-day bi-annual crime summit for senior officers at the Garda College, Templemore, Co Tipperary, Commissioner Callinan added those gangs now identified by Garda intelligence as the main underworld groups were ruthless, making them hard to investigate and prosecute.

“These gangs are very fluid in terms of how they operate and they will bring people with them and they will drop people depending on the type of activities they are involved in,” he said of the Irish and international groups.

“When you’re dealing with firearms and drugs and there’s big money at stake, there is the attraction – especially from younger members of our community – to get involved.”

“These are serious people, very serious criminals who will stop at nothing to achieve their own ends. And they bring around them a cohort of people that don’t crumbled very easily. These people command respect in communities. So we’re working very hard to break down those barriers.”

“We monitor these people very closely and we do our best to put things in place to intercept these gangs and bring them to justice where possible.”

He said the crime summit over the next two days in Templemore was about reviewing the Garda’s operations and planning how best to target those gangs that operate in different regions of the State.

The summit will plan policing operations not only against organised gangs but also around road traffic enforcement aimed at reducing road deaths. Also down for discussion is the running of the Garda’s community policing scheme, which aims to maintain high visibility patrols at a time of decreased Garda manpower and budgets.

The two-day conference involves 11 assistant commissioners and 44 chief superintendents and senior civilian staff in the Garda force.

Commissioner Callinan said while burglaries were down, larceny from shops and from the person remained a problem. The approach aimed at solving those was being reviewed at the summit.

He said it was disappointing to see this year that the number of road deaths had already surpassed the total for all of last year. He believed road deaths would not be reduced exclusively by enforcement measures such as the 64,000 checkpoints conducted so far this year.

“My sense of it all is that education is much more important because (gardaí) cannot be everywhere at all times.”

People must accept that excessive speed, drink driving, use mobile phones and not wearing seat belts “are no-nos”.

Despite there being 21 more deaths this year to date compared with the same period last year, the latest internal Garda figures showed the numbers being detected speeding and drink driving were down.

“You can read statistics any way you like. I would like to take the view that people are actually more compliant. But there’s an awful lot more work to do in that area.”

Commissioner Callinan said he had read reports in the weekend newspapers that suggested an investigation into the removal by gardaí of two Roma children from their homes had found the Garda failed to brief the HSE on its plans to take the children as per protocols.

He was disappointed by the leaks and said some of the information was inaccurate.

He wanted the Children's Ombudsman Emily Logan to be allowed time to conduct her investigation and produce her report. He did not want to say anything to influence that investigation at this time.