The number of gardaí assigned to road policing has fallen by more than 100 since 2021 with a decline of 35 recorded since the beginning of last year, according to new figures from a leading road safety organisation.
Fresh data from the Department of Justice, sourced and analysed by the safety advocacy group Parc, shows that despite a call from Minister for Justice Helen McEntee late last year for the fall in the number of gardaí dedicated to roads policing to be arrested, it has gathered pace.
There were 641 gardaí in the Roads Policing Unit at the end of November last year, down from 688 in January 2023 and 692 at the end of 2022. By the end of last month, the number had fallen to 627, just four higher than at the lowest point recorded in 2017.
Since the end of 2022, Dublin has lost 13 gardaí from its Roads Policing Unit while Donegal has five fewer officers serving in such roles as has Sligo/Leitrim. Cork now has four fewer officers policing its roads.
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The numbers have been in steady decline since 2009 when, according to official Garda figures, there were 1,046 gardaí dedicated to policing the State’s roads. Every county has seen their roads policing force depleted over the past 15 years with the numbers falling by more than 50 per cent in some instances.
“We are of course trying to do everything we can to increase the number of people working in those roads units,” Ms Entee said last October.
However, Susan Gray of Parc said the figures called into question the Government’s commitment to step up policing in the area. She expressed concern at the reduction in the numbers of gardaí policing the roads and said the role was vital but at risk of being devalued which would put more lives at risk.
“The reduced numbers have to be having an impact,” she said. “In 2018 the Garda Commissioner said he was going to ensure that the Roads Policing Units would be over 1,000 because he knew that was where it was in 2009 but that never happened. I really don’t believe road safety is a priority.”
Ms Gray warned there was a “real danger” that more people would die on the roads over the course of this year directly as a result of the lower numbers of gardaí.
The number of people killed on Irish roads reached 47 as of the middle of last week, up seven on the same period in 2023, which was one of the worst years in recent times for road deaths.
Ms Gray said 19 of the 47 people who had been killed on the roads so far this year were aged between six and 27. “All of these young people had their whole lives ahead of them,” she said.
In a statement, the Garda said that while it “does not comment on internal personnel competitions or on the specific details of numbers attached to specialist units,” they can “vary on a month-to-month basis due to many variables including individual Garda members’ personal circumstances, family-friendly transfer policies and promotions. There is no organisation policy to reduce numbers assigned to Roads Policing Units.
The statement said that as Garda recruitment continued and accelerated, additional Garda members would “become available to be deployed to priority areas”, including roads policing.
A Garda spokesman said road policing was a specialist area and replacement members were “appointed to this crucial role on the basis of internal competition only. Proposals are at an advanced stage to commence an internal competition for Roads Policing Units in the near future.”
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