People ‘ultimate winners’ of Garda revamp
The head of the Garda Inspectorate said people in communities will be the “ultimate winners” from the new Garda policing revamp with more gardaí in communities, quicker response times, and better investigations of crime.
Chief Inspector Mark Toland said the contention by Garda commissioner Drew Harris that the new plan will free up around 1,000 gardaí from administrative jobs to operational policing is “conservative” and that the inspectorate estimates the figure at around 1,500.
Mr Toland said the restructuring plan unveiled by the commissioner over a week ago — which stems in large part from an Inspectorate report in 2015 — had been implemented by other police forces who, he said, would “never go back” to the model currently in place in Ireland.
“There will be more flexibility for the organisation and more people out on the frontline,” he said.
Ultimately, it will benefit the community with more gardaí, more visibility, quicker response times and better investigations. The ultimate winners are the people.
The commissioner’s plan will see a reduction in the number of Garda regions (from six to four) and Garda divisions, from 28 to 19, which will be done by merging 18 existing divisions into nine “super divisions”.
Parallel to that will be a complete change within all divisions in how policing services are managed, from a situation where a superintendent was in charge of all policing services in a district to one where superintendents are in charge across the entire division for specific areas, such as crime or community engagement.
A senior civil servant will now assume all administrative duties, including HR and finance functions.
“I think people will see the benefit immediately,” Mr Toland told the Irish Examiner.
“Under this model, one superintendent, instead of having a number of functions to do, instead of managing an entire district, will have a function, such as covering crime, for the whole division.”
He said this superintendent will be able to bring together “multiple” drugs unit and detective units into bigger units — with the same applying for superintendents in charge of community policing and response teams.
He said these superintendents will be “better skilled and experts in the field”.
Mr Toland said: “Victims of crime should now go into any station and get the same level of service and the crime investigated very quickly, rather than inconsistent approaches, even within a division.”
He said the “big thing” with the changes is “taking away the frustration” of superintendents doing administrative work.
It would also apply to sergeants and inspectors: “It will free them up. They won’t have to brief eight units in two districts, but four units in one division. They will be managing slightly bigger teams.”
Mr Toland said in the Cork City pilot divisional project, 10 gardaí were freed up for the frontline.
He said cutting the number of assistant commissioner posts and chief superintendent posts will free up the support staff from those positions.
He welcomed the commitment of Mr Harris to community policing, saying that “it is really good for local people”.
He said the commissioner’s estimate of 1,000 gardaí being able to leave administrative jobs for operational policing is “a conservative estimate” and that they thought the number could be 1,500.
