I live in a moderately sized town, population 30,000+ and there’s ONE car serving the town at any given time.. To say they’re doing the best they can with very little is putting it lightly!

Excuse me for my sceptisism but I don’t belive you. A town of 30000 and one police car?

I appreciate your skepticism Reg.. Believe me, I find it quite shocking, but I’ve had the Gards out 5 times in the past few months.. The first time response time was 2 hours, a tuesday afternoon.. When they said there was only one car – I assumed it was for that time of the day / week.
The next time we had to call them was a Thursday evening. 3 hour wait (including calling back to see where they were after 2 hours) again, only car on patrol. I asked was this the regular situation and the Gard told me that yes, the town has a population of 32,000 and ONE patrol car (that’s how I found out my towns population in fact).
Have had this confirmed by another gard as well as a sergeant who attended with two Gardaí on one of the occasions we had to call.

It is unbelievable, but it’s the truth unfortunately. How they manage to get anything done is a mystery..

and they are excellent tax collectors

we dont need a “legal system that works”, we need a lawful system that works…you can be jailed for having a lobster that is too small !!! even if the lobster was attacking you and you killed it in self defense !!!…………… there are 100,000 ways to go to jail in Ireland “legally”….our “legislators” are gone physcho….remember when Michael McDowell used tell us he dreamed up new legislation……..

Excellent comment Mick.

John, Comms. Callinan’s management teams are already admitting that these rosters do not work for specialist units and are frantically trying to make local arrangements to overcome their failings. He won’t admit this!

Vito, simple maths tells you that 4 units of 10 gardai and 5 units of 8 garda both equal 40 gardai.

You clearly don’t get the new roster so allow me to explain, they overlap. This means that say, on a Saturday night at midnight you have unit A AND unit C working together (2 units = 16 Gardai on duty) compared to the old system where unit A would be on their own (1 unit on old system = ten Gardai)

The times that there are less working are the slower periods like early Monday morning but theres only so much can be done if your not going to increase Garda numbers. If you need more on Saturday night those Gardau have to come from somewhere. Its just a sad reality that we always needed more Gardai to actually offer a decent police service, not less

The Commissioner would be out of a job if he said that.

or 120hrs in 16 days,

Or 180 in 26 days, what’s your point?

Is it not less physically and mentally exhausting??? No more quick changeovers… Mandatory rest days… More consecutive days off together (same number of hours-before anyone comments)…. Any gardai I know much prefer the new roster.

get the mail and bring in the bin

Yes it did but the ‘terms and conditions’ were only agreed last week. The roster has operated nearly five months without built in safeguards to ensure adherence to legislation such as the Organisation of Working Time Act. This Working Time Agreement gives those safeguards to the people working the roster. Such safeguards includes issues surrounding time off, rest periods, health and safety, changing working hours etc.

The working time agreement is not suited to police work end of

What protection posts do unarmed Gardai do?

Finally a Garda who works and understands the system, giving an explanation and not a keyboard warrior.

Paul Carroll. You don’t understand why it’s this way? You’ll not be making Detective any day soon then will you.
It’s because that’s your job baby

No it doesn’t.

it means more Garda at weekends especially Saturday nights.

Whats so important about Sundays. We only go to mass.

Question…do you know the details of the changes or are you spoofing?

This seems unlikely – can you back this up? Is it a presumption or an extremely unlikely possibility?

I think you may have that back to front. The Gards work a 6 day week with 4 days off.
Bearing in mind that’s 10 hour days, except on Sunday’s. It can be frustrating when the gard dealing with your case is on their time off, but I still wouldn’t begrudge them having it. Most work quite far from where they live and can’t have much of a life on the days they are working.

Well since nearly all investigations are carried out by detective units you’d be wrong there, and for any serious crime the gardai involved still have to work overtime and probably just get time off in lieu instead

Wits end: spot on . This roster is certainly good news in terms of saving money but it is certainly not conductive to properly investigating crime . And we know that this fine Gael government has no interest whatsoever in fighting and solving crime . It’s about money folks . Dont think that this roster will improve detection rates . All it will do is reduce the overtime bill .

Yes the majority of breaks, from what I can see, are four days off after six on. However there seems to be occasional five and six day breaks.
Detectives are guards too and have the same days off. So in theory and given that there isn’t any over time, or so we are told, – the guard who takes the report of a child being abused may not be involved in the case for another four, five or possibly six days. This doesn’t allow for annual leave or sick leave. I’m sure other officers would take up the slack but it’s not the same is it

Ya cause when the murders happen the guard at the scene is allowed head away for “6″ days, good one

There is no 6 day break and there is overtime for major investigations. there is one 5 day break every 10 weeks.

Vinny, I’m having difficulty finding a definative link to this new roster to see exactly what lengths of break periods there are. If you have one i’d appreciate it. If you say there is no six day break but there is five I accept that. My point remains that it is a long time to be away from developments in a major investigation. I am informed that major investigations are no longer carried out on over time though.

Do you know this or are u spoofing too?

@wits end maybe the roster is on the GRA website – not sure but worth a look. With regard to major investigations they are not been adversely affected and while your source re overtime may think he/she is correct I can assure you that while overtime is at a premium it is still available where necessary for major investigations.

@Mick if your question is directed toward me I can assure you I’m not spoofing

its not 4 days off…. on the so called first day off gardai work until 7 am that day from 9 pm the previous night …. so it is not a day off , they have worked that day..

These changes came about with absolutely no resistance from the GRA or anyone else. Gardai have been looking for change for years.

The changes may well suit the police officers, particularly uniform personel, but – in my opinion – its to the detrement of investigations and consequently the victims of serious crime.

@ Wits End
You’ve stated the same after other comments further up the thread & Im having trouble seeing where you’re coming up with these ideas that there’ll be no investigative units working in the event of a serious incident taking place!!! With the new roster implement there are five units instead of four now in place!! There will always be detectives working!! That said, if I’m wrong & you can show me something to back up your claim, I’ll stand corrected!!

@nuffsaid. You’ve missed my argument throughout the thread. I’m not suggesting there wouldn’t be police officers / detectives there for four or fiver days. I’m simply pointing out that the officer (s) who begin the investigation could then be absent for a lengthy period and I believe a lot of first hand knowledge and continuity of enquiry is potentially lost. By the time they return to follow up the investigation the momentum is lost. My opinion

No, I picked up on what you were saying alright! But surely most stations would have a pool of do many detectives / detective sergeants all as capable as each other where only so many are going to be off at any one time!

Taling out of your backside but then when does that stop people? It was the GRA and Gardai that have been pushing for change not fighting it.

Now off you go and believe all the media and government spin

Lets hope no burglars are reading this then….