JUSTICE MINISTER HELEN McEntee has said that all recommendations from a report on mishandled 999 calls will be implemented.
The report, published yesterday, revealed how allegations of serious sexual assaults and abuse were not investigated.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio this morning, the minister said that “every recommendation that is made” should be implemented:
“Where there’s further training that’s needed, whether it’s additional resources that’s needed, where there’s oversight, further oversight that’s needed, all of that.”
When asked whether Gardaí took reports of domestic violence seriously enough, McEntee said: “I believe that the tide is turning in that regard … I think there’s a way to go for all of us.”
But she insisted that “it’s not okay to say well, the vast majority of cases, we followed up on.
“There were a number of those cases that we simply don’t know what happened. We don’t know if anybody came to harm. We simply don’t know. And for me, that’s not good enough.”
The report found that there were issues where the call takers did not properly assess the vulnerability of some callers alongside highlighting incidents where information provided within calls was not accurately recorded.
A previous internal Garda review found that there were more than 200,000 999 calls cancelled between 2019 and 2020.
Dublin declaration
A two-day conference is currently taking place in the RDS in Dublin where a significant declaration on European efforts to tackle domestic violence will be made.
McEntee said that 37 of the 46 countries in the Council of Europe had signed up to the so-called Dublin declaration, and she hoped that more would sign up today.
“The focus of today and yesterday is to try and make sure that this as an issue stays on the agenda of the Council of Europe,” she said.
There are still nine counties in Ireland without a refuge centre for those fleeing domestic violence, which McEntee conceded was not good enough.
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