Minister can’t guarantee that 999 calls will not be cancelled
JUSTICE Minister Helen McEntee has admitted she can’t guarantee that emergency 999 calls won’t be cancelled again.
The Fine Gael TD has described revelations that a 999 call from a child reporting a sexual assault had not been followed up as ‘hugely upsetting and disappointing’.
Her comments come after a report by the Policing Authority revealed mishandling of 999 calls had lead to the ‘potential for serious harm to victims’ after thousands of calls were cancelled by gardaí. The damning report also said it was impossible to determine whether serious harm had occurred in some cases.
A previous internal Garda probe revealed that over 200,000 emergency calls were cancelled between 2019 and 2020.
The Justice Minister yesterday said she was committed to implementing the recommendations in the report, but she stopped short of vowing that the issue won’t happen again.
‘Can I say that this will never happen again? No, I can’t,’ Ms McEntee told Newstalk. ‘But I can promise you that I will do everything on my part and use the recommendations in this report and will be acted on.’
The Minister addressed one incident outlined in the report in which a child made a call to report an ongoing ‘serious sexual assault’ on their parent, while also revealing they had been sexually abused by the perpetrator. Gardaí were sent out but it was found that the address was incorrect, with investigators unable to identify the child. The incident was then cancelled.
Commenting on incident, Ms McEntee said: ‘It is hugely upsetting and hugely disappointing to think that a child – who possibly has been thinking about that for a long time, who has taken such courage to ring and say this is happening – that would not be followed through.
‘That’s why we need to make sure that this report, that we go through it in fine detail,’ she told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland.
The Meath East TD said the Government would address where further training was needed with the gardaí, along with the need for extra resources and supervision of 999 calls.
She said the numbers of supervisors within units had been increased in the wake of the scandal, adding that even more would be drafted in.
The Minister added that the Policing Authority will be given powers to access phone records under legislation that she is bringing forward.
Yesterday, Ireland was among the dozens of countries in the Council of Europe to sign up to the ‘Dublin declaration’ on tackling domestic violence as European representatives met in the RDS.
Ahead of the conference, Ms McEntee said the number of the cancelled 999 calls that related to domestic violence was ‘hugely disappointing when we are doing so much work and the gardaí are doing so much work to tackle domestic and sexual violence and to encourage people to come forward’.
She added: ‘I cannot stress how important it is for people to still call 999... if they’re in need of be it the gardaí or other types of support or assistance. We want people to have confidence in the system. They should have confidence in it. And we just need to improve that confidence.’
‘Hugely disappointing’