Some roads policing gardaí allegedly park their cars out of sight and avoid work for their entire shift while others refuse to travel too far from the station to save on lunch money, according to a scathing new report.
The behaviour is part of a pattern of a “noticeable minority” of roads policing gardaí being “unproductive” and “unconcerned with doing an effective and professional job”.
The Crowe report was commissioned by Garda headquarters after an anonymous garda-turned-whistleblower found some senior gardaí were “afraid” to intervene when officers they were managing were persistently performing poorly.
While stressing that the majority of Roads Policing Unit (RPU) members were professional and dedicated, the report is damning in its assessment of some members as well as their managers and supervisors.
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There are gardaí “who are disinterested in being productive and effective, and who are able to get away with such behaviour, to the frustration of their colleagues, supervisors and managers”.
Supervisors told the authors of the report that in some cases, RPU members would return at the end of their shifts without having detected a single road traffic offence or issued a single fine.
RPU gardaí made no effort to conceal their dislike of their job or how little work they do. A small number did not care that their automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras were non-functional and one garda appeared to turn the camera so its view was blocked by the rear-view mirror. ANPR allows gardaí to automatically identify a number of offences including drivers without tax or insurance.
It said: “We also found it disturbing that those members who told us how much they disliked their job had no difficulty in raising these issues in front of external consultants engaged specifically by An Garda Síochána to review how roads policing operates.”
Some members appeared to be “coasting” towards retirement, the report said.
In other instances, consultants were told some gardaí were reluctant to travel too far from their station as it meant they would have to buy their own lunch or coffee. Others insisted on operating only with a specific partner. Supervisors “did not feel empowered or inclined to break those partnerships up”.
Some RPU members appeared to have a much higher tolerance for road-traffic offences compared to gardaí assigned to general policing, it found.
The consultants noted it was common practice to only stop motorists going more than 20km/h over the limit, while general gardaí might prosecute people for speeding by less than 10km/h.
There are also “wide variations” in the productivity of RPUs around the country, the report found. One district recorded 2½ times the number of detections per member than the worst performing district.
Poor supervision was at the heart of many of these problems, the report stated. Supervisors were avoiding confrontation with poor-performing gardaí and “shying away from proactive management”.
Part of the problem is the interpretation of the Garda’s Performance and Learning Framework (PALF). This is an internal policy which, according to the report, is widely understood to prevent garda supervisors from proactively managing their subordinates.
“In effect, this is significantly frustrating the right of management to manage,” the report states.
The report also took issue with the persistent under-resourcing of the RPU and its ageing vehicle fleet. There are 40 per cent less RPU members than in 2009, with a particular shortage of supervisors and managers.
Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said he was “shocked” at the findings which made for “stark reading”. He said it was “unsatisfactory” that supervisors do not believe they can, or should, engage in performance management of subordinates.
The Garda Representative Association said the report highlighted issues they have been raising for years. However, it condemned “unfair leaking of selected quotes from the report and repeated criticisms of the commissioner for unfairly blaming the rank and file”.