by Andrew Carey
JUSTICE Minister Alan Shatter, severely “hamstrung” senior Garda management when he underfunded the force by millions of euro, according to Fianna Fail Justice spokesperson Niall Collins.
The Limerick TD said he will lodge a request for a further €51 million supplementary budget allocation to the Department of Justice at an Oireachtas Justice Committee meeting later this week, on the grounds that Minister Shatter mislead the Dáil in his budgetary submissions.
Speaking in Limerick this Monday, Deputy Collins said Mr Shatter “mislead” the Dail when his department returned looking for a further €51 million euro following a budget overrun.
The Limerick Deputy said that earlier this year he was one of a number of political figures who stated that the Minister had quite clearly under funded the Gardaí in their payroll budget.
“I raised it on a number of occasions with the Minister in the Dáil but he quite highhandedly and arrogantly just dismissed it out of hand and said that there was no issue there when in fact there was.”
“It was poor governance, poor administration by the Minister and he really hamstrung senior Garda management and the Garda Commissioner in terms of planning their annual policing plan.”
“The provision of policing services is over a 12 month period and all divisional police plans feed into the national police plan. If the Gardaí told the Minister and the Department that they were underfunded, they are effectively compromised in rolling out their policing plan”.
“We have seen dedicated drugs units around the country stood down – particularly in Limerick in the last few days. Community gardaí have taken away from that service and reassigned to the core roster.
“The Minister has to correct the record because he misled the Dáil on a number of occasions when I challenged him. It is simply not good enough when I and other dissenting voices do our job and raise a legitimate issue that we are dismissed out of hand in the manner and the fashion he did at the time.
Deputy Collins said he has been “informed by a number of community gardaí based across County Limerick that they have been taken from their community policing role.
“This is a direct result of Minister Shatter failing to adequately resource the Garda’s single biggest resource which is manpower.
Stating that he would be worried about the impact of having fewer community gardaí in Limerick, Deputy Collins added that the net effect would be to break the link between Gardaí and the communities they serve.
“When you break that link and start to run your policing operations from a distance, you are losing a vital connection with the public in terms of crime prevention, crime detection and intelligence gathering.
Deputy Collins said that a focus needs to be applied to “reestablish community-based gardai”.
