Garda 'under threat' from cuts

The Garda will not be able to function as a force if numbers are reduced to levels contained in the programme for Government, it was claimed today.

The president of the Garda Representative Association, Damien McCarthy, also called for tough new legislation with separate, more stringent penalties for violent attacks on members of the gardaí.

Speaking in Westport today on the eve of the association's annual conference, Mr McCarthy said nobody had "stress tested" the Garda to check if its functions could be carried out by the 13,000 officers envisaged under the Programme for Government.

Nobody had examined the consequences of reducing Garda numbers so fast, he said, an omission that would put gardaí safety further at risk. The nearest the force had come to a "stress test" was under a former minister for justice Michael McDowell which had set satisfactory numbers at up to 15,000 in principle.

In December last year there were 14,400 members of An Garda Síochána, but Mr McCarthy said the numbers were already on a downward trajectory, with "between 700 and 800" members leaving the force in the last two years. As many as 1,500 may be currently at an age when they may opt for retirement.

Citing the example of the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation which he said had just 13 officers of garda rank, he said the unit was receiving "hundreds" of complaints for investigation every week and "can't cope" with the requirement for policing the financial institutions on a daily basis.

Recruitment for specialist sectors such as the fraud unit would come in the first instance from the broader Garda Síochána, and would further deplete numbers there, he said. "There is going to be a major breakdown," Mr McCarthy warned.

Asked if he believed extra security arrangements for the visits of Prince Albert of Monaco, Queen Elizabeth and President Barack Obama were satisfactory, given the depleted numbers of garda personnel, Mr McCarthy said the situation was "obviously difficult"

He would, he said, be making that point to the Garda Commissioner, when the commissioner visits the conference tomorrow.

Referring to a number of cases of violent and fatal attacks on members of the Garda, Mr McCarthy called for mandatory life sentences for the manslaughter of a garda. He said the courts were restricted in that juries could not consider a garda different from anybody else.

But he said the gardaí who had been killed or injured had acted "heroically", and that in other jurisdictions like the United Kingdom, stiffer penalties were in place to deter acts on police and emergency services.

Attacks on gardaí were running at an average of two per day, Mr McCarthy said, citing a recent incident in which a garda received 30 stitches having been gouged in the face with a broken bottle. In that instance he said he had no doubt the garda had saved a man's life.

Different sentencing options must be available, he said, "for those who have no respect for the law; no respect for the life of a garda".

Pressed by media to speak on widely reported comments of gardaí in Co Mayo, in relation to women who had been detained, Mr McCarthy acknowledged the comments were made as part of a "private conversation".

But, he said: "There is no escaping the fact that this is a very serious incident," and that the force would have to listen to what the Garda Ombudsman said and take on board the ombudsman's findings.

A wide range of motions relating to health and safety are also on the agenda for the two-day conference which concludes on Wednesday. A number of delegates have expressed particular concern about levels of ongoing training, lack of resources and the age of the Garda vehicle fleet.