Gardaí use of force up 13.5% – in just a month

Policing report also shows fatal road crashes rose by 62% this year

USE of batons, incapacitant spray, tasers and firearms by the gardaí has risen by 13.5% in the space of a month to 118 recorded incidents in June.

A new report to the Policing Authority of Ireland details the number of recorded occasions where gardaí used force is up from 104 in May.

Incapacitant spray was used 95 times in June up from 84 in May.

Batons were used 22 times and the number of times a taser was used is down from two to zero. There were no firearm discharges in June or May.

Given the increasing number of deaths on Irish roads in recent weeks, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris was particularly focused on road safety issues in the report.

In the report he said: ‘Safety on Ireland’s roads is at a worrying point and our Roads Policing Bureau is working especially hard to urge drivers to slow down, as the number of road fatalities very sadly increased further during June 2022.’

During the first half of 2022 the number of fatal road collisions also increased by 62%, with serious collisions increasing by 11%.

There has been a 17% increase in drink-driving incidents on 2021, which is up 5% on 2019 figures.

More than 4,000 drivers have been arrested so far this year for such offences.

Drugs and weapons offences are down on last year. The quantity of drug detections has reduced by 30% on 2021, but the volume of seized drugs has increased, with drugs valued at more than €37million seized up to the end of June.

These are provisional figures from the Garda Pulse system. They are sent to the Central Statistics Office (CSO) for verification and publication of the official crime statistics.

As part of the appeal over the June Bank Holiday weekend, 817

MIT checkpoints were carried out, which led to the arrest of 182 people for drink and drug driving, and the detection of close to 3,000 speeding offences.

The report also found reports of accommodation fraud have risen by 58% and bogus tradesman fraud by 81%. These figures come

from the first six months of 2022.

Provisional Garda statistics for the first six months of the year show that although fraud offences are down 2% on 2021 numbers for the same period, they remain 92% higher compared to the first half of 2019. Gardaí said ‘significant increases’ continue in online fraud, such as account takeover fraud which is up 128% on last year.

Blackmail and extortion offences have increased by 32% on the same period last year, and by 227% on 2019 figures.

Other rates of crime are also on the rise: incidences of rape have increased by 23% on last year and there has been ‘a continued increase’ in domestic abuse – with 13% more incidents attended by Gardaí in the first half of 2022 compared with last year.

Assault causing harm was up 34% on the first half of 2021 and up 14% on the same period in 2019.

Although harassment, stalking and threats were down 5% on the comparable period in 2021, incidents are up 17% on 2019.

‘Road safety is at a worrying point’

More than 4,000 drivers arrested