Mr. Ronan Clogher:

As previously highlighted, the issue of silos is a very real factor within An Garda Síochána. Drugs units and detective units can operate separately. They should be working in conjunction with community police. We keep going back to this. It is very important. The term “community police” is used quite loosely within Garda circles. We much prefer the “interactive community police” term because that reflects a person who is out on the street, meeting the public, talking to young people and maybe involved in youth clubs or starting up the local soccer team. They can talk to the young people and deter them following the wrong path. That is where An Garda Síochána can make a real difference. It is very important that An Garda Síochána talks to each other.

In regard to younger members of An Garda Síochána joining, it is no secret that we have a big problem attracting recruits into An Garda Síochána. Approximately 6,700 people applied for An Garda Síochána in recent months. However, only 3,400 sat the entry exam. We are now at a figure of roughly 2,700 moving on to stage 2 of that competition. We are clearly not going to meet our targets again this year. The problem is attractiveness. We believe a big issue in attracting recruits into An Garda Síochána is social media. Social media is having a detrimental effect on people making the decision to have a career in An Garda Síochána. We see gardaí day in, day out doing their job. They are filmed on social media – the phone in the face scenario. This is then taken out of context and put up on social media, and gardaí’s reputations are destroyed. We saw recently a very bad case of a member of our association being harassed and abused on social media. That member had to seek an injunction and put up the funds herself for it. We believe nothing has been done about the social media issue. We in AGSI are looking for something similar to the work that Nóirín O'Sullivan carried out in respect of politician safety. Basically, politicians had a problem with social media, and gardaí now have a similar problem. If a task force could be developed to look into how we can protect members of An Garda Síochána and deal with this difficult social media issue, and if some sort of structure could be put in place and training for gardaí to handle these awkward situations, that would be a positive.

There is a big problem that younger members cannot afford housing in the areas they are working. There are distance limits as to how far they can work from their homes, and this is causing a problem. Young people cannot afford to buy houses in, for example, the greater Dublin metropolitan region. Some people are travelling an hour and half. Some people live beyond Mullingar or all the way around the city. It is difficult for them to work overtime. Overtime caps have been put on in recent times. The operating model is only being sustained through overtime, and that is happening for the past four or five years. Overtime caps came in in recent weeks. This was brought in under the guise of well-being and the welfare of members. However, overtime caps have been put in but the amount of work has not been removed. The Commissioner alluded to this last week. Gardaí are seriously overworked, which is creating a very stressful environment.

In regard to the District Courts, I cannot speak for every court but sometimes there are hearings and there may be Garda witnesses. We have court presenters in every division and it has removed many of the gardaí, but it would depend on what was on that day in the courts.