HEAD OF the Garda Síochána Inspectorate Kathleen O’Toole has urged the force and the HSE to implement immediately key reforms she first suggested 3½ years ago on how gardaí handle armed sieges.
Garda negotiators called in to deal with sieges still do not have access to mental health experts to assist them during such flashpoint incidents. This is despite the inspectorate recommending the introduction of such a system in 2007.
The recommendation was made in 2007 in an inspectorate report arising from its review of the shooting dead by gardaí of John Carthy during a stand-off at his home in Abbeylara, Co Longford, in April 2000.
Of the 84 recommendations in the 2007 report, the Garda has fully implemented 74 and partially implemented a further seven.
However, the three recommendations yet to be implemented deal with the availability of mental health experts to support Garda negotiators. Ideally, they would assist Garda negotiators called in to try and communicate with people who had barricaded themselves into locations with firearms.
The inspectorate recommended:
- The establishment of a roster of mental health professionals who would be available to work with negotiators when needed;
- That the rostered professionals would attend training courses with gardaí;
- That a memorandum of understanding be drawn up between the Garda and HSE around the supply of mental health professionals to Garda negotiators when the need arose.
The inspectorate imposed a target deadline of the second quarter of 2008 for the new system to be put in place.
However, more than two years after that deadline, the measures have still not been implemented.
The lack of progress was highlighted yesterday when the inspectorate published details of what recommendations included in five of its previous reports had or had not been acted upon.
A Garda spokesman said while the specific recommendation of the inspectorate had not yet been implemented there had always been an informal exchange of expertise between the Garda and HSE mental health professionals. This informal system remained in place.
Talks between the HSE and Garda to implement the inspectorates’s specific recommendations were ongoing. However, it was not clear when they would conclude.
“The inspectorate exhorts all concerned to work towards having formal arrangements in place without further delay,” Ms O’Toole said.
The progress updates also reveal that a recommendation made in 2007 for a firearms tactics training centre had also not been acted upon. The Garda has said it hoped to make progress on those plans by the end of the year.
A plan to build a tactical training centre near the Garda College, Templemore, Co Tipperary, has stalled due to fiscal constraints.
Ms O’Toole also published progress updates in relation to recommendations she has made in a series of other reports since 2007. More than 90 per cent of her recommendations have been partially or fully implemented.
However, a small number of recommendations had not yet been implemented. These include the devolution of policing powers to senior officers in the regions, enhanced driving training and recruitment of civilian staff to some key posts.
COULD DO BETTER: RECOMMENDATIONS NOT YET IMPLEMENTED BY THE GARDA
By the first months of 2008, greater powers to be devolved from Garda Headquarters in Dublin to the six regional Assistant Commissioners. A Garda report on the issue is still being finalised.
That all serving Garda personnel be given specialist driver training by the end of 2009. The Garda has revised this deadline to 2012.
That key civilian posts be filled and Garda and civilian personnel be managed by a common human resources structure. The inspectorate noted that the civilian posts of director of strategy and of human resources management had not been filled despite there being no impediment, including the recruitment moratorium, to do so.
That a tactical firearms training centre be built to help train gardaí use guns in a variety of scenarios.
By 2009 a review of the number of gardaí authorised and deployed to use firearms be conducted.