Garda chief in hotseat over ignored 999 calls
GARDA Commissioner Drew Harris is set to face a grilling from the independent policing watchdog over thousands of emergency 999 calls that were ignored including one from a desperate kid.
And a leading Sinn Féin TD placed the spotlight firmly on the Commissioner over the brewing scandal – in which as many as 10,000 999 calls were ignored between 2019 and last year.
Party Justice spokesperson Martin Kenny said he was also worried the affair could turn into another penalty points scandal, in which more than 70,000 fixed penalty notices were cancelled.
That led to the creation of the Disclosures Tribunal and the finding that disgraced Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan had been involved in a smear campaign against penalty points whistleblower Sgt Maurice McCabe.
Deputy Kenny said: “The buck stops with Drew Harris. If individual gardai failed the public, they need to be held accountable.
“We need to know if there was an attempt to conceal or cover this up and what action has been taken.”
The Commissioner is due to be questioned about the 999 affair publicly by the Policing Authority at its monthly meeting on Thursday and its members are sure to want answers on why so many pleas for help went unanswered.
The authority has already held a private session with the Commissioner over the calls.
One of them included a distressed child asking for help, it is understood, as well as three calls in an hour from a mother who was being attacked by her partner.
The scandal first came to light when the Sunday Times reported earlier this year that thousands of 999 calls to gardai were cancelled by officers, which meant in many cases they did not have to work on them or enter details on PULSE, the force computer system.
Sources said in many cases there were valid reasons for the calls to be cancelled, such as repeat nuisance calls
But several gardai who spoke to The Star all agreed there would be a major problem for the force if it did turn out that pleas for help form the public were simply ignored.
One said: “I would be horrified if that turned out to be the case.
“999 calls are sacrosanct. Each one has to be responded to. There are no excuses.”