Crime fear as Garda budget for overtime is slashed
Chief Supt’s orders to cut extra hours in the capital by 38%
AN GARDA Síochána is slashing overtime budgets in Dublin, which will mean a dramatic reduction in the number of officers on the capital’s streets, the Irish Mail on Sunday has learned.
THE GARDA overtime budgets for Dublin is being slashed – which will see a massive cut in the number of officers fighting crime on the capital’s troubled streets, the Irish Mail on Sunday has learned.
Internal Garda correspondence, seen by the MoS, has ordered Garda chief superintendents and superintendents across the Dublin Metropolitan Region to cut overtime by as much as 38%.
When such a ban for December leaked last November, it ended up being reversed after Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan intervened and said the move was the result of a ‘misunderstanding’.
The greater Dublin area has seen a number of high-profile murders and violent incidents in recent weeks. However, the cuts have started at the beginning of this month. Garda sources say they now fear a summer crimewave with so many officers expected to be removed from the capital’s streets.
The letter, that has been seen by the MoS, was dated May 30 and sent by Chief Superintendent Francis Clerkin to Superintendents in the A, B and E Divisions of Dublin.
It carries orders from Assistant Commissioner for Dublin Pat Leahy, given at a Senior Leadership meeting in May. ‘Further to a discussion at the Senior Leadership meeting this month we are required to reduce spending on overtime in the DMR [Dublin Metropolitan Region] by 38% for each of the remaining rosters in order to bring expenditure back within budget,’ it says. ‘Currently, the overtime spend for this division is over budget by 48%,’ it says.
Last year, the cost of Garda overtime soared to almost €131m. In 2016 the bill was €91m, it was €56m in 2015 and €37.7m in 2014.
Some of the pay increase agreed in 2016, to avert a strike, is being paid in the shape of 15 minutes of additional overtime per shift. This is set to put pressure on the overtime budget in future.
But one of the biggest financial costs has been Dublin’s bloody Kinahan-Hutch gangland feud, which has claimed 14 lives. In the city’s north division, where most of the feud murders have happened, overtime hit €13.7m last year, up from €5.2m just two years earlier.
Overtime in Dublin north, north central, south, and south central – all of which are responsible for tackling the feud – soared to €47.1m last year.
This is more than double the €20.5m spent in 2015 before the feud began.
In all, €130.8m was spent on overtime across the country last year – an increase of almost €41m on 2016 and €75m on 2015.
Assistant Commissioner Leahy is one of five officers on a shortlist to take over as the next Garda Commissioner. However, this move will prove highly controversial.
He ordered the December cut that caused a storm of controversy.
This cut will severely curtail every aspect of policing as overtime effectively fills holes in rosters.
The Garda Representative Association said: ‘Overtime is the cheapest form of policing and it has been used in the past to fill the numbers.’
Some gardaí see overtime bringing their working week up to 100 hours. Last December, contingencies were allowed for officers involved in trying to quell the Hutch/ Kinahan gang feud. There are no contingencies mentioned in the letter on this occasion.
‘Only in exceptional circumstances with the expressed permission of the Chief Superintendent, subject to health and safety considerations/working time agreement, can a member exceed this 50 hours cap in any one roster,’ the letter says.
Some of the shocking cases gardaí have dealt with included the arrest of a 13-year-old boy charged with the murder of Anastasia Kriegel, the 14-year-old girl who was found dead in Lucan last month.
Shortly after the death of Ms Kriegel the murderous rampage of crazed Mark Hennessy was ended when gardaí shot him dead in car at
Bill soared to €131mllion in 2016 Maximum of 50 hours per roster ‘Overtime is the cheapest form of policing’
Cherrywood, Dublin. Gardaí from Dublin and Wicklow responded when members of the public reported seeing Hennessy drag student Jastine Valdez into his car near Powerscourt.
Senior security sources have told the MoS that they are stunned with the decision to cut overtime.
‘With such an outbreak of attacks on innocents in Dublin and its environs many would have expected a bolstering of Garda resources,’ said a senior source.
‘Instead we get this vicious cut. It makes no sense and it will endanger the lives of the public.’
All Garda overtime for regular police operations in Dublin was abolished at the end of November last year. Up until the end of October last year, just before the cuts came in, almost €107m was spent on Garda overtime in total.