Honestly sounds like they weren’t arsed leaving the station, and yer wan is being far too sympathetic about it, given how after she eventually rang someone who cared they were there in a jiffy.
Had the exact same experiences myself. This is universal and it simply is not just funding – it is also the culture of the force. Many do not take their job seriously. How many times have you gone into a station to provide a statement only to be left waiting for 1.5 hours because they’re all out getting a chicken roll and they turned the phones off? Me, and this was a Dublin station. They also knew I was coming because they asked me to be there at a specific time.
For the Gardai out there, is there a specific phrase we can use that you have to respond to?
i.e. “there’s someone in my house, I’m just going to get the shotgun…”
I’d rather have the Gardai arrive and give me a bollocking for ‘stretching the truth’ than them not arriving at all
There’s no issue with funding nor is there a shortage of guards.
A man in the local town to me had his house broken into a couple of years ago. Like the woman in the article, he thought it would be better to wait outside for the guards rather than go inside the house.
His first call to them was at 8pm and the didn’t show up until 3pm the following day. He had called the station over 70 times and was fobbed off every single time with a different excuse or lie.
It seems that the only crime that they will pursue is no tax/insurance/NCT and they even can’t do that right as they had a friend of mine up for no tax and had the wrong month and year on the summons and it was thrown out.
If you are broken into then the best way to get them out there is to say you’ve shot someone in self defence and they’ll be with you before you end the call.
I grew up in a time where you’d be afraid of a guard and you’d give them respect but not now.
Burglary is a low priority crime, with low conviction rates, simple.
No face no case. Gloves probably worn. They’ll take a statement, give the person a code and that’s that, unless the goods show up later on.
Nobody should be brought before the courts for personal drug use while gardai can’t adequately respond to real crimes. I understand they’re under resourced but surely what resources they do have should be put where they are needed. Its time to prioritise.
Government announced two citizens assemblies today with no mention of the promised assembly on drug reform. Reforming our drug laws could free up huge resources.
There’s no monetary fine for burglary. It’d have to be treated as a regular crime if it went to court rather than a cheap juryless non payment case.
Need to be honest about the actual arrival time too. Saying you’ll be 20 mins 3 times in a row and then taking hours isn’t good form. Having parents who live rurally, it’s scary to think if anyone broke in. You could have the guards rock up hours later being like ‘so what happened?’.
I can understand it’s a lack of resources too, in rural counties you have 1-3 squad cars covering 30km + sections. Need to work on how to best deploy people though and communicate.
If you were a neighbour and saw someone break in and called the guards, if the guys said ‘we’ll be 20 mins’ you might wait and just keep an eye out. If if they said ‘actually we have no squad cars available, it’ll be 2+ hours’. You might call other neighbours to come down and try to scare them off or try to help. Rather than just let some poor auld lad getting kicked around the place in his house.
8 comments
Honestly sounds like they weren’t arsed leaving the station, and yer wan is being far too sympathetic about it, given how after she eventually rang someone who cared they were there in a jiffy.
Had the exact same experiences myself. This is universal and it simply is not just funding – it is also the culture of the force. Many do not take their job seriously. How many times have you gone into a station to provide a statement only to be left waiting for 1.5 hours because they’re all out getting a chicken roll and they turned the phones off? Me, and this was a Dublin station. They also knew I was coming because they asked me to be there at a specific time.
For the Gardai out there, is there a specific phrase we can use that you have to respond to?
i.e. “there’s someone in my house, I’m just going to get the shotgun…”
I’d rather have the Gardai arrive and give me a bollocking for ‘stretching the truth’ than them not arriving at all
There’s no issue with funding nor is there a shortage of guards.
A man in the local town to me had his house broken into a couple of years ago. Like the woman in the article, he thought it would be better to wait outside for the guards rather than go inside the house.
His first call to them was at 8pm and the didn’t show up until 3pm the following day. He had called the station over 70 times and was fobbed off every single time with a different excuse or lie.
It seems that the only crime that they will pursue is no tax/insurance/NCT and they even can’t do that right as they had a friend of mine up for no tax and had the wrong month and year on the summons and it was thrown out.
If you are broken into then the best way to get them out there is to say you’ve shot someone in self defence and they’ll be with you before you end the call.
I grew up in a time where you’d be afraid of a guard and you’d give them respect but not now.
Burglary is a low priority crime, with low conviction rates, simple.
No face no case. Gloves probably worn. They’ll take a statement, give the person a code and that’s that, unless the goods show up later on.
Nobody should be brought before the courts for personal drug use while gardai can’t adequately respond to real crimes. I understand they’re under resourced but surely what resources they do have should be put where they are needed. Its time to prioritise.
Government announced two citizens assemblies today with no mention of the promised assembly on drug reform. Reforming our drug laws could free up huge resources.
There’s no monetary fine for burglary. It’d have to be treated as a regular crime if it went to court rather than a cheap juryless non payment case.
Need to be honest about the actual arrival time too. Saying you’ll be 20 mins 3 times in a row and then taking hours isn’t good form. Having parents who live rurally, it’s scary to think if anyone broke in. You could have the guards rock up hours later being like ‘so what happened?’.
I can understand it’s a lack of resources too, in rural counties you have 1-3 squad cars covering 30km + sections. Need to work on how to best deploy people though and communicate.
If you were a neighbour and saw someone break in and called the guards, if the guys said ‘we’ll be 20 mins’ you might wait and just keep an eye out. If if they said ‘actually we have no squad cars available, it’ll be 2+ hours’. You might call other neighbours to come down and try to scare them off or try to help. Rather than just let some poor auld lad getting kicked around the place in his house.