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SUNDAY WORLD
23rd January 2012
TIME TO STOP THE COP CUTS...
...or there WILL be a crime wave
BLOCKED toilets at Garda stations taking weeks to fix, broken
cells permanently closed because of routine maintenance problems and murder detectives being told to leave crime scenes and eat their sandwiches back at the station to save money.
Welcome to An Garda Siochana in 2012. A force mired deep in
a crisis that is about to get far worse. By the end of next month at least 298 officers, each with at least 30 years experience, will jump from the sinking ship. The brain drain will see young,
untrained officers being left to investigate serious crime while wily, experienced detectives are allowed to retire early to reduce wage bills.
Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan has an almost impossible job. He has been told to slash €79m from his budget this year at a time when burglaries are increasing at an astounding rate. Callinan is facing an uphill task because of the
cutbacks ordered by the Department of Justice and is fighting crime with one hand tied behind his back.
The Sunday World has led the way in reporting how these savage cuts have left our brave gardai struggling to pay their
mortgages and morale in the force at an all-time low.
Armed
 Last month we revealed how, in a remarkable display of short
-sightedness, more than 2,500 Garda detectives are to be stripped of their guns to save a paltry €2.7m. This penny-pinching is resulting in
members of the public being put at risk because only 1,200 officers throughout the country will have firearms to confront serious criminals with.
Tonight, if there is a late-night armed robbery in Ballyfermot in west
Dublin between 2am and 8am there will be just TWO armed detectives on duty in the entire capital. Due to the fact that these detectives are
usually busy answering other calls, the chances of the criminals being arrested are practically zero because by the time armed gardai arrive, the raiders are long gone.
When the new Garda roster is introduced in the coming months, the
number of armed officers on the streets during the day will be heavily slashed. Hundreds of cash escorts take place
each day and these will be dramatically reduced because there won't be the officers to accompany the cash-intransit
vans and deter criminals. We will literally see daylight robberies. The only winners in this debacle are the gougers.
2012 will see well more than 600 Garda cars simply disappear. The majority are being retired because they will have
reached 300,000 kilometres and are no longer safe. They will not be replaced. The good cars in the Garda fleet are
mostly used in Dublin. What do you do with the old bangers in rural Ireland where serious crime is much less prevalent? Send them to Dublin of course and give the country gardai the new cars. 
Does it not occur to Garda management that if there are teenagers going wild joyriding at speeds of more than 100 miles an hour or a robbery gang
escaping in a high-powered Audi that the old squad cars won't be able to keep up with them? As criminals realise this, armed robberies and other
serious crimes will go through the roof. This will lead to a political outcry and ultimately more gardai will be employed to deal with the crime wave.
Does it not make more sense to give the force an extra €79m now to avoid paying hundreds of millions down the line?
Of course it does. But sense is in short supply in Leinster House and
among bean counters in the Department of Justice and Garda Headquarters. In the meantime, gardai are forced to buy their own toilet roll because there is no money for supplies and two expensive Garda
helicopters are practically grounded because there is no money to fuel them. Gardai are no longer allowed to go to
court to prosecute cases and elite units such as the Organised Crime Unit may well be disbanded altogether.
Last year saw the fewest number of deaths on our country's roads in over 30 years. Credit deservedly went to the
Garda Traffic Corps. Because of the forced cutbacks over 400 members of the unit will be sent to do other work this
year. Broadcaster Gay Byrne, Chairman of the Road Safety Authority has come out against the madness of the plan and road deaths will surely rise.
Serious
 But have no fear, the officers who still work in the traffic corps may well
be given Segways to replace the cars that will be taken off them. It sounds like a scene out of RTE's Sergeant Mattie comedy show but it is
life and deadly serious. Gardai have had to suffer more pay cuts than the ordinary worker over the last two years.With levies and the taxing of
allowances gardai are taking home 20 per cent less now. It used to be the case that officers could nearly double their salary in overtime but
because of the cutbacks there are NO overtime hours available so gardai who earned €70,000 three years ago take home just over €40,000 today.
The crisis goes all the way to the most senior ranks.There are currently
vacancies for four assistant commissioners, 16 chief superintendents, 50 superintendents and 60 inspectors. Many gardai have been on
promotion list for over 18 months but the cabinet has refused to sign their promotions off for money reasons. You now
see senior gardai doing the work that two, or even three, officers would have done just three years ago.
Only this week Justice Minister Alan Shatter held his hands up and admitted that more Garda stations will be closed in
2013 even though 31 stations, most of them in rural Ireland, will be chopped this year. He talks about "further
consolidation of stations" and the fact that closing them frees up desk-bound gardai, as if it is a good thing. It is fine for Shatter who lives in leafy south Dublin and has
Rathfarnham, Terenure, Rathmines, Tallaght, Crumlin, Sundrive Road, and Dundrum Garda stations all within a few minutes' drive of his home.
Citizens
What about taxpayers in areas like Glenville in Co Cork or Ballylongford in Co Kerry who will have no local gardai on
the beat by year's end? How are they meant to sleep soundly in their beds at night knowing that if a burglar is trying to break in it could take gardai an hour to arrive?
Laws introduced last week allow home owners to use force to stop somebody breaking into their homes. If there are
no gardai within 50 miles then people are pretty much being asked to be their own police force and effectively make
citizens' arrests and hold potentially dangerous criminals until the cops are able to arrive and arrest them. It is a recipe for disaster.
Shatter only needs to look out his front window to see the Garda post in his garden with uniformed officers on 24-hour
duty to make sure that some disgruntled member of the public doesn't attack him. If he is so concerned about gardai
doing useful frontline work why doesn't he do his bit and voluntarily give up his post like Michael McDowell did?
Controversial as he was, McDowell always led from the front and batted for gardai, unlike the current axeman Justice Minister.
The men and women of An Garda Siochana have one of the hardest and most important jobs in society. The deserve
the best possible equipment, best possible pay, and best possible conditions because they risk their lives every day to
make sure that you and I are safe. Alan Shatter and the faceless civil servants in the Department of Justice need to go
through the books and find the €79m to make sure that the cutbacks that are killing
the force are reversed. It is the right thing to do.
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