A report on the Garda’s investigation of serious crime is expected to contain criticisms of the force and recommend the decentralisation of the approach to investigating serious offences such as murders, rapes and organised crime.
The establishment of regional serious crime squads is expected, as are changes to the responsibilities of superintendents around the country.
The report by the Garda Inspectorate, which advises the Government and Garda on policing reform, has been conducted following allegations by Garda whistleblowers that many serious crimes were not investigated fully. In some cases it was alleged there was no substantive investigation and many serious crimes were not recorded in official data or were recorded as less serious crimes to massage figures.
Wider view
While Garda whistleblower Sgt Maurice McCabe, who also raised concerns about the termination of penalty points, focused on Cavan-Monaghan in his complaints the Inspectorate has taken a much wider view of how the force conducts investigations into serious crime.
It is expected to in effect uphold the allegation that some crimes are under-recorded or not properly categorised.
The large report, which sources said will make for difficult reading for the Garda and the Government, has already been presented to Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald and interim Garda Commissioner Nóirín O'Sullivan.
Both the department and the Garda have been considering the report’s findings and recommendations and formulating responses, which are expected to be published along with the report as early as tomorrow.
It is expected superintendents around the country will no longer be in charge of policing in a geographic area.
Instead, they would be assigned responsibility for types of policing such as traffic enforcement, in a larger Garda region, reporting to the assistant commissioner leading policing in that region.
Other plans would see the kind of expertise for investigating serious crime currently contained in the Dublin- based National Bureau of Criminal Investigation being deployed locally.
Sieges
This would in effect involve the establishment of serious crime squads in the six Garda regions in reforms that would mirror those already introduced for dealing with siege incidents.
Previously when the Inspectorate examined how the Garda responded to armed sieges, especially barricade-type offences, it was found the response locally was insufficient.
At the time, when local gardaí were confronted with armed suspects barricaded into houses and similar scenarios, they sealed off an area pending the arrival of the Emergency Response Unit (ERU). In order to improve and speed up responses locally, Regional Support Units were introduced. These have the same training as the ERU.
