A Clare TD has highlighted the ordeal caused by the misclassification of 999 emergency calls to An Garda Síochána.
The Policing Authority have said that Gardaí are continuing to cancel and misclassify 999 calls without going through the proper procedure despite an ongoing public controversy on the matter. These cancellations are in addition to the 53 emergency calls highlighted by the Garda Commissioner last month.
High risk 999 calls had been incorrectly reclassified as less serious. An update on the amount relating to Co Clare was sought by Deputy Violet Anne Wynne (SF) at Monday’s meeting of the Clare Joint Policing Committee.
Garda Commissioner, Drew Harris said that 22 incidents in Clare were subject to a National CAD review from January 1st 2019 to October 23rd 2020. Of these, fourteen were calls for assistance in a domestic setting, six were complaints on missing persons or family issues while two related to mental health.
In follow-up calls, none of the Clare victims requested further personal engagement but they were “appreciative of the call made,” Harris stated. “Our experience is that in more rural divisions as you move out from bigger towns and cities, this has been a lesser issue, a small number of calls dealt with set against a number of incidents in the Clare Division in 2020 and 2021”. He offered assurances regarding the response organisation in place and said a new CAD system is to be in operation for 2022.
“Everyone would agree the old system wasn’t working and wasn’t helpful,” Deputy Wynne remarked. She continued, “In Clare, a lot of the communities are rural based, there is a concern that victims that might reach out for assistance and in such areas with a rural base that it is a bigger ordeal for them people to reach out for help when they do make the call. My concerns are around the fact that the calls were misclassified, I would be concerned that they politely said they didn’t need further assistance when that might not be the case”.
Members of the Clare public phoning the Gardaí on emergency matters need “to be treated with the respect and seriousness that they deserved,” the Kilrush woman outlined.
Speaking further on the matter, Commissioner Harris commented, “The issue for us is that there was a service failure in not classifying them properly and then in terms of to follow through in maintaining contact with the person who made the report, we’ve rectified that by making contact”. He concluded, “We’ve apologised for the service failure, we’ve put in place a means to support the individuals who are reporting domestic abuse or other serious crimes”.
