Notorious Dublin area accounts for one in 10 of all garda resignations this year

Justice Minister Helen McEntee has pledged the force will target up to 1,000 recruits next year, after she allocated an extra €172million in Budget 2024

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• 05:00, 16 NOV 2023

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More than one in 10 of all garda resignations this year were from officers based in Leo Varadkar’s own constituency.

Dublin Live has established that 144 officers have quit so far in 2023 and approximately 15 were in the Garda ’s DMR West division that covers Dublin West. And we have also learned that the number of resignations from the DMR West includes four in the past month.

The division is one of the most challenging in the whole force and is home to several serious crime syndicates, including the Gucci gang in Finglas and the Family drugs mob in the Clondalkin area. Det Gda Mark Ferris, who is the DMR West delegate on the Garda Representative Association’s central executive committee has now told us that morale is suffering in the division.He said: “The recruitment and retention crisis continues to sap morale in DMR West, via a vicious circle of under-investment, ballooning bureaucracy, resource depletion and plummeting confidence. It’s common knowledge in the force, that this division has over 10% of national resignations, indeed members are resigning earlier.

Det Garda Ferris said it was vital that the force brings in and retains more recruits so policing can be visible on the streets. He added: “When the public see Government announcing eye-catching initiatives and spending increases for policing that in itself acknowledges that the State don’t have the number of required frontline Gardai to effectively and efficiently police the country. It is how this money is spent that matters.”

He also said there was now a belief among officers that they were spending too much time on paperwork and not enough on trying to catch criminals. He added: “Members are chained to desk duties by form-filling and pen-pushing which is the product of a technocratic culture in senior management. This inhibits gardai in being proactive and detecting crime and engaging with the local community.”