Gardaí have made “no significant progress” in addressing the “terror” of drug-related intimidation and the grooming of young people into crime, according to a policing watchdog.
The Policing and Community Safety Authority (PCSA), the new name for the Policing Authority, made the comments in a midyear assessment of the Garda’s performance that found the force was falling behind in several critical areas.
Only seven of the 18 policing goals were found to be “on target” with the remainder being judged as “at risk”.
The PCSA was particularly critical of a lack of progress in dealing with drug-related violence and intimidation. The comments follow several high-profile incidents of suspected drug-related violence in recent weeks.
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These include an arson attack in Edenderry, Co Offaly, on December 6th that killed a four-year-old child and his 60-year-old grand-aunt. One of the chief suspects in the attack is a young teenager with links to a local drugs gang.
On November 25th, a woman suffered severe burns after being doused with an accelerant and set alight as she answered her front door in Clondalkin, Dublin. The attack is suspected to have been carried out by a local drugs gang.
Gardaí believe the intended target was an associate of the woman. She remains in an induced coma with burns to much of her body.
The PCSA said it is concerned about drug-related intimidation “and the grooming of children and young people into organised and drug crime”.
It said gardaí across the country have expressed frustration to the authority about the ability of the force to tackle the issue and the lack of a multi-agency response.
It concluded there has been no significant progress this year by Garda management in addressing the issue.
Criminal gangs are increasingly using children to carry out drug related attacks, sometimes rewarding them with clothes or e-scooters. Other children are coerced into carrying out attacks as they owe drug debts themselves.
PCSA chief executive Helen Hall said the Garda has now produced a plan to tackle the issue of child grooming “but there is still a lot to do there”.
“I don’t think there is a town in Ireland that is not struggling [with drug intimidation]. There is a huge fear factor about reporting it because often there is a family member involved who has brought this intimidation into the house,” she told The Irish Times.
Ms Hall said the grooming of children into crime could be termed child exploitation. “Children are being brought into that world from the age of eight or nine years of age.”
The PCSA also raised concerns about a lack of effective performance evaluations for gardaí and Garda staff. This follows the publication of the Crowe Report earlier this year that found severe deficiencies in the Garda’s approach to roads policing. Many of these failings stemmed from a lack of supervision and performance evaluations of members.
Supervisors reported believing they did not have the authority to take action against the minority of staff who perform little or no work.
The PCSA said it “strongly believes” a single performance management system is needed for the entire organisation.
“Without such a robust system in place, An Garda Síochána cannot identify the good work done and, likewise, cannot identify and address underperformance.”
Recruitment and retention of gardaí remains a matter of “significant concern”, despite widespread Garda hiring campaigns, it said.
For the last decade, the Government has repeatedly promised to increase Garda numbers to 15,000 or more. However, this goal remains remote. There are currently less than 14,300 members.
The authority said that, given the rate of retirements and resignations, “radical measures” will be required to bridge this gap.
It also raised concerns about a drop in the numbers in the Garda Reserve. Targets to increase reserve numbers to 1,000 by next year and 2,000 in the longer term are “are unlikely to be met”, it found.
Instead, Reserve numbers have continued to drop, falling from 442 in 2021 to 296 this year.
