Written answers

Tuesday, 29 July 2025

Department of Justice and Equality

An Garda Síochána

Photo of Thomas GouldThomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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2142. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the number of hours that calls in Blarney, Glanmire and Ballincollig were diverted from the Garda station to the nearest Garda station in each of the past five weeks, by Garda station, in tabular form. [44220/25]

Photo of Jim O'CallaghanJim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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As the Deputy may be aware, the Garda Commissioner is responsible, under the law, for all operational policing matters, including the deployment of Garda resources and the management of calls for service, including call diversion procedures.

I am advised by the Garda authorities that An Garda Síochána operates a Regional Control Room strategy to ensure that Garda resources are available to respond efficiently to calls from the public, including where local station coverage is limited at a given time. Calls for service, whether received through a local station or via the national 112/999 system, are routed through these Control Rooms and prioritised based on urgency.

I am further informed that An Garda Síochána’s new Computer Aided Dispatch system, GardaSAFE, was rolled out across the organisation in 2023, with full national coverage in place since late November 2023. This system is now the primary means for coordinating emergency response and provides enhanced capability for managing and tracking live operational demand.

At present, GardaSAFE is focused on supporting real-time operations. While some reports are available to assist Control Rooms in monitoring call volumes and dispatch capacity, detailed statistical reporting is still in development, including regarding specific data on hours of call diversion by station. Reporting functionality is expected to be enhanced in Q3/Q4 of 2025 as data quality reviews are completed and Key Performance Indicators are implemented.

Accordingly, I am advised that it is not currently possible to provide the requested data in the format sought. However, An Garda Síochána continues to develop its systems with a view to improving future reporting and data transparency in this area.

Photo of Thomas GouldThomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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2143. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the average length of time from 999 call to arrival at the scene for relevant calls in Cork in each of the past five years, in tabular form. [44221/25]

Photo of Jim O'CallaghanJim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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I am advised by Garda authorities that GardaSAFE, the new computer-aided dispatch system in use by An Garda Síochána, was rolled out incrementally across the country during 2023, with the final region, Dublin Metropolitan Region, going live in November 2023.

As a result, consistent and comparable data on Garda response times, including average times from 999 call to arrival at the scene, is not available for previous years or on a regional basis at this time.

While GardaSAFE does provide live operational data, such as call volumes, to Regional Control Rooms, detailed reporting functionality is still under development. The available data is currently being assessed for quality and consistency, with a view to enabling bespoke queries and detailed analysis in due course. It is expected that these capabilities will be in place by Q4 of 2025.

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