Garda response times and usefulness

ieoinu

It never ceases to amaze me the amount of people that think, believe and expect that in every Garda Station around the country sits a team of Gardaí waiting for You to call. I hate to have to dispell this myth but you call will be one of many similar such calls that every guard has to deal with on an hour by hour basis.

A lot of districts are huge, as in an hour from one side to another with only one car available to do the calls. So if you have one call half an hour away and lets just say its a simple drunk prisoner. You are looking at half an hour to get there, a few minutes to deal with the situation depending on circumstances and half an hour back to the station and another 20 mins at least processing a prisoner. So in total you could be looking at an hour and a half easily, and that doesn't include the drive to the next call. I can promise you that the guards themselves would rather be dealing with a more rewarding task ie catching some 'real criminals' as people like to say, rather than some b####x that can't hold his liquor, that they've probably arrested a hundred times before.

Whereas it is understandable that for many when they phone the guards it is a crisis in their lives and want immediate solutions/assistance etc. However it will not be the only such crisis going on that day in that area and some will be worse than yours. Its similar in fashion to A+E, your broken leg hurts like fook and you want it fixed now, but someone else's chest pains will have to be dealt with first, even if it turns out to be indigestion from eating too many kebabs.

The fact your house was broken into and property taken is horrible and a huge invasion of your privacy, life etc BUT more than likely the thief is gone, they pulled their sleeves down over their hands so no prints, even if they cut themselves a there is blood at the scene we have no DNA database (because of the bleeding heart liberals think we'd be a police state with one, when in fact it might bring us out of the 1980's). The guard will know this and even if the suspect is caught he/she will be out of the courthouse before the guard.

I believe that the police deal with 10% of the population 90% of the time, the inverse is also true. The masses in this country that cant run their own lives without the interaction of the police is nuts. The amount of man/woman hours spent on things like dealing with drunks, neighbourly disputes, negotiating between fighting couples, taking women to refuges etc only to see them back with their partner the next day. You can't ignore it, cos what happens if the next time someone ends up injured or worse dead. Who's fault will it be? The police of course!

I know that not every policeman/woman is an ideal of what you want and sometimes poor service is provided, but that is also true of every profession in this little country of ours. Gardaí's pay and working conditions have been savaged in recent years so morale is incredibly low. There has been a huge exodus in the recent retirements, adding increased pressure to an already under pressure force. The fleet is falling apart and Garda stations are closing around the country with more closures to follow. I know Gardaí that are so lazy they wouldn't get out of their own way, these are in the minority and I know ones that take their paperwork home or stay behind after their shift to do the report on the burglary that'll never be solved, these are more typical.

It's not a case of doughnuts and 'losin da hattitude', it's a case of being real about things. For every example of poor service I can give a hundred of outstanding dedication and professionalism. Remember the police are not the cause of, and the solution to, all life's problems!!

Rant over!

Paz-CCFC

It's impossible to get any sort of discussion going in these type of threads, with the amount of subjectivity that comes with them. Too many people tend to fall onto one entrenched side.

One side is the Garda bashers, who feel that every single member of an Gárda Síochána is a self-interested, innocent-assaulting scumbag who earn commission on fines. The other is the ultra-defensive lot, who feel that no Garda has every done any wrong and that any problems one has with them is obviously that one's fault.

Then you have those who want to contribute some real, sensible and objective debate. But they're just accused by the aforementioned people with entrenched views of having some sort of agenda. Any criticism, however slight or justified, means that you MUST hate the Gardaí, and you're obviously a convicted criminal. Any praise means that you just love the Gardaí & their corrupt ways; you're probably the wife of a Garda, too.

It's a shame, really, because sometimes threads relating to this topic could provoke a lot more interesting debate.

woodoo

They like to swing by the chippie on the way to calls

cocoshovel

Have heard of an hour response time to a stabbing 500m down the road from the garda station (which the ambulance took that time to get there too), and have also heard of responding in under 10minutes.

I cant comment on it really because I dont know the circumstances surrounding most of their callout times but people like to criticise and nit pick at everybodies job even though they are completely ignorant to the workings of it.
imo if YOU are not trained and have the same understanding of the workings of a specific organisation or company etc, you have absolutely no grounds to criticise or ask why something wasnt done the way you think it should have.

Garda are one of the bigger ones who get question by people like this, but imagine if you had some person constantly pointing out little things you did in your job and asking why you didnt do it another way, even though they havent a clue about that area of work in particular, wouldnt that píss you off? The first thing that would come to my mind is "ignorant gobshíte".

charlemont

tayto lover wrote: »

It pays to be well known then

Got the occasional lift home too from some of the sounder ones once I started to behave myself.

Molloys Clondalkin

MagicSean wrote: »

What were you expecting? Do you watch CSI by any chance?



Nothing to do in Mullingar? Isn't there a large violent traveller feud in progress there for the last four years?



http://pavee.ie/mediamonitor/?p=272

Our resident pretend a cop speaks
I seriously doubt the traveller fued is a full scale riot every hour of every day.
They happen in Dublin too you know. where a lot of cops are pathetic I hope the days not going to a call and just saying gone on arrival to control are over but this thread makes me think different.

Motorist

Naomi00 wrote: »

Called the gardaí after my house was burgled. This was in an area where there rarely any burgalaries, but there had been a couple of them at the time. One garda showed up a few hours later (station is five minutes away and they're never busy), talked, didn't really do anything. A garda forensic came around a few days later. Tbh I think they just go to pretend they're doing their job and then forget about it as soon as they're gone. That's why no one ever gets arrested for stuff like that here even though people get caught for things all the time in other countries. The guards just cant be arsed to do anything. They always seem really unprofessional too.

True that guards can't be ar$ed doing anything, couldn't agree more. Ive reported a few serious crimes to them over the past few years including one where I gave them footage and they knew the identity of the criminal- they never bothered their ar$es following it up, and separately I've wasted two days waiting around for them to show up for forensics. Both times they never showed up ( and in both incidents the need to carry it out was suggested by them and time arranged by them).

They're great for stopping drivers a few kmp/h over a ridiculously low speed limit on a perfectly safe road or for giving a totally unnecessary condescending attitude at a checkpoint. A penalty point notice in the post is the only follow-up you're ever likely to get from them.

Everyone will base their opinion on personal experiences of them. I find they can't be bothered doing anything for any crime less than very serious assault, murder, rape, etc. Anything less than that and they just want to keep the head down and get away with doing as little as possible. It's amazing how efficient they can be become over night though if a case is anyway high profile or reaches the media, or if an external agency such as Interpol or another police force gets involved. Pity that they only spring into action out of embarrassment.

MagicSean

Molloys Clondalkin wrote: »

Our resident pretend a cop speaks
I seriously doubt the traveller fued is a full scale riot every hour of every day.
They happen in Dublin too you know. where a lot of cops are pathetic I hope the days not going to a call and just saying gone on arrival to control are over but this thread makes me think different.

Are you referring to youself as a pretend a cop or me?

And it takes very little to spark violence during a feud. The smallest of incidents can indeed lead to a need for constant Garda presence for days.

pache

It would seem that the society we live in a pizza will get to your house faster than the gardai !!!!!!

SuperGrover

Amberlamps???

MagicSean

pache wrote: »

It would seem that the society we live in a pizza will get to your house faster than the gardai !!!!!!

I'm sure if you paid for Garda service at your door they could probably afford to provide a better response time.

There's no point moaning about how you pay your taxes because we don't have any kind of direct link between taxation and spending in this country. I'd love if there was though. I'd much prefer if my payslip said exactly where my money went instead of just PAYE, PRSI, USC. A seperate deduction for each government department should be done.

SuperGrover wrote: »

Amberlamps???

Private security

shangri la

In my experience on a night out the gardai are so annoyed dealing with drunks and walking around in the cold + dark that a lot of them will try to antaganise you and then take you into custody when you lose your cool because one of them is pushing you in the chest repeatadly while asking whats your name and you can't complain to anyone because you had a pint even though this little guard has a ridiculously high public order offense arrest rate while their partner looks on quietly because he can't say anything to his headbanger partner because of the culture within the gardai.

Feisar

counterlock wrote: »

I worked in a supermarket during college, a guy got stuck with a knife and we called the amberlamps and gards. Amberlamps arrived before the gards despite the station being 100 metres from the shop and the hospital being on the other side of town.

Same shop got robbed at knife point, gards took 20 mins at 7am to get there. Anytime we called em for some scobe robbing cans, they are there in 2 mins.

Amberlamps - Get Um.

Cee-Jay-Cee

SunnyDub1 wrote: »

I Think it's fair to say that robbery & a guy after been struck with a knife requires quicker assistance and is more important then a broken boiler

I think its also fair to say that you totally missed the point of my story.

kylith

My grandmother's house was broken into a few years back. The gardai were called and arrived at some point - since the crime was well over there was no point rushing. They told her not to dust or clean, and they'd be back the next day to fingerprint. She gave up waiting and cleaned up two weeks later.

I had my moped robbed once and went to my closest garda station where I was told that they weren't the right station, despite being less than 500m from my house, and I'd have to go to the one in Kilmainham. I told them that if they thought I, a 20 something girl, was going to start wandering around unlit lanes in Kilmainham on my own at night they had another think coming, and I had no intention of adding rape and murder to my list of problems. I eventually got them to take my statement.

Still, for all the badmouthing I wouldn't hesitate to call them if I needed to.

paddyandy

What we REALLY care about in our Broken down society is reflected in political decisions regarding Garda Presence .The Gardai are not getting the support from the general public that they need so the politicians don't bother either .

Dr Turk Turkelton

paddyandy wrote: »

What we REALLY care about in our Broken down society is reflected in political decisions regarding Garda Presence .The Gardai are not getting the support from the general public that they need so the politicians don't bother either .

I think if you read through this entire thread that the reason the Gardai don't get support from the general public is because they don't do anything.
They are hopelessly inefficient and a drain on resources.I'm not tarring them all with the same brush just saying how I would think they are percieved by about 70% of the population.
If they want some respect they really need to up their game.Response times are ridicules as can be seen in this thread and as for being busy somewhere else it's probably at the side of the road stopping the "real criminals" driving 10 kph over the speed limit.

CrazyRabbit

Almost every Gardai that I've had dealings with has been professional and been a decent person.

Only a few bad apples (one who was interviewing me and treated me like the criminal even though I was just a witness, and one who stopped me at 3am Dec 26th on the N3 dual carriageway because I was in the wrong lane...only the 2 of us on the road.)

Anyway. I've been burgled and they arrived within 2 hours which is fine for a non-urgent issue. But the forensics guy didn't appear until 3 months later, and he left that black powder everywhere. The burglar left a hat with some lose hair behind, but then again that is useless without a DNA database, so they didn't have much interest in that.

Last time I needed assistance was when I found my friend/flatname dead from an overdose. They arrived within 10 mins and were really great.

If they Gardai didn't have to deal with drunks, and stupid little public disorder offences by morons, then they'd be able to more quickly deal with the more serious issues. They also have a serious lack of resources...not enough cars or people to properly police the areas they look after.

Overall, I think they do a good enough job with what resources they have, and within the restrictions of many very stupid laws/courts.

mikemac1

paddyandy wrote: »

What we REALLY care about in our Broken down society is reflected in political decisions regarding Garda Presence .The Gardai are not getting the support from the general public that they need so the politicians don't bother either .

The system works when they want it to work

The full treatment

forensic teams sealed off the property and remained in the house for some time.

The detectives get involved

Mr Heavey had been arrested near Mr Shatter's home and had been held for questioning.
Det Sergeant Eugene Stapleton told Judge Clare Leonard that Mr Heavey was charged at Dundrum Garda station on last night.

Catch one man, demand names and then pick up the others

TWO further arrests have been made over a break-in at Justice Minister Alan Shatter's house.

A man aged 41 and a 40-year-old woman were detained in Dublin this morning in connection

Been kept off the streets, the State is motivated here

A father-of-one charged over a burglary at the home of Minister of Justice Alan Shatter earlier this month was further remanded in custody today pending directions from the DPP.

I can only hope the other sixty nine on that day get such superb action from the State

Figures from the Central Statistics Office show that 70 burglaries or related offences were committed every day in the last few months of 2011.

Lollipops23

CrazyRabbit wrote: »

The burglar left a hat with some lose hair behind, but then again that is useless without a DNA database, so they didn't have much interest in that.

We don't have a DNA database?? Really? Jesus H Christ, we're backwards....

CrazyRabbit wrote: »

Last time I needed assistance was when I found my friend/flatname dead from an overdose. They arrived within 10 mins and were really great.

Sorry to hear that

Fuhrer

CrazyRabbit wrote: »

But the forensics guy didn't appear until 3 months later, and he left that black power everywhere.