Cadaver dogs, used to find human remains, are very rarely needed by the Garda and the force has no plans to invest in having dogs available full-time, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris has said.
This is despite remarks at the weekend by Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan, who said it would be “preferable” if the Garda had its own dog in light of developments in the Tina Satchwell murder investigation.
The commissioner said that in his near seven-year tenure as commissioner, he believed a cadaver dog had been used three times, with those dogs provided from Northern Ireland. While the Garda does “not want to be entirely reliant on others”, having a cadaver dog is a significant resource, especially as it would be rarely used in the Republic.
“A cadaver dog is not out every day working in the same way that a drugs or firearms or money dog would be, it’s a very specialist resource,” he said, adding that even within the area of working dogs, these animals are “specialist”.
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When asked if a cadaver dog should have been deployed to help find the Satchwell remains in the period immediately after she was reported missing in 2017, the commissioner said the murder investigation is being reviewed.
“But from what I know from the reports I’ve seen ... the suspicion was harm had been caused to Tina Satchwell, but there was no suspicion that her body was actually there [in her home].”
Ms Satchwell, née Dingivan (45), was murdered by her husband Richard Satchwell at their home on Grattan Street, Youghal, on March 19th-20th, 2017, and her body was buried under the house in a deep grave. However, her remains were not found until October 2013, 6½ years later.
Though the Satchwell house was searched in 2017, a cadaver dog was not used. However, when a dog was deployed during a search of the house in 2023 it focused on the area under the sittingroom stairs, where the body was later found.
Asked on RTÉ’s This Week programme whether such a dog should have been brought into the Satchwell home in 2017 during the investigation, Mr O’Callaghan said “probably, it should have happened”. He said he spoke to the commissioner about the effectiveness of cadaver dogs.
“They’re a very specialised dog in terms of trying to train them. There is one on the island of Ireland; the PSNI has one,” he said.
“That dog is sought by many police forces in Britain as well. We got the use of the dog here and he was of much assistance.
“It obviously would be preferable if we had a cadaver dog. They have a very limited work life, cadaver dogs – they’re only operational for a period of about three years, they have to go through a very difficult training process. It would be preferable if the cadaver dog available on the island had been used earlier.”
Richard Satchwell (58), a lorry driver from the UK who had settled in Cork with his wife, claimed he killed her accidentally after fending off an attack by her. He then buried her remains under the house to conceal her death.
Satchwell, who has 14 previous convictions, was sentenced to life in prison last week. He intends to appeal the verdict.
Mr Harris was speaking at Garda Headquarters, Dublin, at the launch of a report outlining developments in the force since 2018, when the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland reported and Mr Harris was appointed commissioner.
The report sets out how 15,000 mobility devices were now in use, giving frontline gardaí access to the Pulse computerised databases and other databases, including confirming the tax and insurance status of vehicles. About 700 body-worn cameras have also been rolled out in Dublin, Waterford and Limerick, with full launch of the scheme expected in the next 12 months.
The report, which was compiled by the Garda, also says the force’s fleet, at 3,672 vehicles, was the largest ever, while public trust in the force was at 89 per cent. A Garda water cannon was also unveiled at Monday’s event, along with new public policing vehicles and armour and other equipment recently acquired to better prepare gardaí for public disorder.
Mr Harris said the water cannon would only be used in exceptional circumstances, including if any violent disorder were to arise on the streets when Ireland assumes the presidency of the EU next year.
However, the Garda Representative Association (GRA) described as a “glaring omission” from the report what it sees as a retention and recruitment crisis in the Garda.
“At the end of 2024 the GRA proposed a number of measures to tackle this crisis, including raising the pay of trainees and newly trained gardaí to attract new recruits, and then a long service increment and better pension rewards to encourage longer retention of the experienced members we already have,” said GRA deputy general secretary James Morrisroe.
“But these suggestions appear to have been ignored as Garda management press ahead with the operational policing model which has left serious gaps in the real-time availability of frontline members to serve their community with boots on the ground.”
