Emergency calls still cancelled in their thousands by the gardaí

THE Policing Authority has expressed serious concern that gardaí are continuing to cancel and misclassify 999 calls despite commitments made to stop the controversial practice.

Last night it emerged that emergency calls are still being cancelled invalidly, with the number of ‘very high risk’ cases yet to be determined.

The cases from last week are in addition to 53 calls, highlighted by Garda Commissioner Drew Harris last month, that had also been dropped without a proper policing response.

Nearly all of these cancelled calls were from people dialling 999 to report that a burglar alarm had gone off.

It is understood that the new cases are in the thousands but the authority would not give an exact figure.

In light of this revelation the independent review being conducted by Scottish policing expert Derek Penman is expected to be more thorough and take significantly longer to complete.

The Policing Authority said that a large number of high-risk 999 calls have also been incorrectly reclassified as less serious or been misclassified.

In a statement issued last night it said the Gardaí had informed the authority in the past week of ‘further issues which raise questions about the appropriateness of management and cancellation’ of 999 calls. It said that these issues were ‘of serious concern’ and that many calls were potentially mishandled. It also added that ‘a far greater number’ of calls might have been classified inappropriately .

The news comes as the Gardaí are working to resolve issues around the cancellation of thousands of calls between 2019 and 2020, many of which related to domestic violence.

In June, the Garda Commissioner apologised to victims of domestic abuse whose calls were cancelled.

It emerged then that more than 2,000 calls were cancelled for ‘invalid’ reasons.