Gardaí contacted 51 times following youth referral revelations
GARDAÍ have been contacted 51 times by people who believe they have been affected by the failure to prosecute almost 3,500 young offenders.
Commissioner Drew Harris is expected to apologise again to the victims of crimes who were let down between 2010 and 2017 when he appears before the Oireachtas Justice Committee today.
A helpline set up last month has had 35 relevant calls and there has been a further 16 emails to gardaí, Mr Harris is
to tell TDs and senators.
In his statement to the committee, Mr Harris says he wants to apologise on behalf of An Garda Síochána to the “more than 3,000 individual and corporate victims that we let down”.
He says: “Each and every one of these crimes should have been investigated.
“The public expects that if something is reported that it is investigated.
“I expect the same.
“We also let society down by not fully pursuing these crimes, some of them serious, committed by young people.”
He is also set to apologise to the young people involved.
He will say: “These were generally vulnerable children who had committed crimes in the past and would commit further crimes.
“We should have done better by them.”
Details of the failure to prosecute the crimes emerged last month.
An internal Garda report into the youth referral scheme found that 7,894 cases where youths were deemed not to be suitable for the diversion programme were not appropriately dealt with over a seven-year period.
About a quarter of the force’s officers were involved in the cases, it revealed. Mr Harris apologised at the time and said: “It’s profoundly humiliating for us as an organisation.”
One incident of rape, one case of child neglect and one incident of a sexual offence were among those cases not properly progressed.
The other crimes included public order (23pc), theft (19pc), traffic (14pc), and criminal damage (11pc). Mr Harris is to tell the committee that under Garda regulations, divisional officers are delegated responsibility for disciplinary matters relating to officers under their management.