Policing Authority criticised continued improper cancellation of 999 calls
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The Policing Authority has expressed exasperation at the continuing improper cancellation of 999 calls despite the “intense focus” on the problem and efforts by Garda HQ to address it.
The authority said the ongoing issues were of “serious concern” and some of the incidents were identified as “very high risk”. It said it would question the Garda Commissioner in public about it next Thursday.
Only three weeks ago, Drew Harris expressed his shock after some 999 calls continued to be cancelled despite the controversy that erupted when the practice was exposed last year.
He told the authority in September that 53 emergency calls had been cancelled despite the introduction of new procedures to prevent it. He said he did not understand the motivation behind the cancellations and said disciplinary proceedings would follow.
The controversy began after it was discovered that more than 200,000 999 calls between 2019 and 2020 were cancelled.
More than 3,000 were related to domestic violence. While many cancellations were found to be valid or duplicates, thousands were incorrectly cancelled.
In a statement on Thursday, the Policing Authority said it had been actively engaged with the unwarranted cancellation of 999 calls since first being informed in December 2020 and, especially, since more detailed and comprehensive information was made available last May.
It said the independent, external preliminary examination commissioned by the authority, being conducted by former Scottish police chief Derek Penman, was ongoing.
It said a range of issues had emerged, including legal problems with accessing the calls, meaning the report was “unlikely to conclude for some time”.
The authority said Garda HQ had informed it in the past week it had identified “further issues” which raised questions about the appropriateness of management and cancellation of CAD incidents/999 calls.
“These issues are of serious concern to the authority,” the statement said. “They relate to a number of calls that were cancelled other than through the remedial arrangements that were introduced to resolve the original problem.
“There is also a far greater number where the appropriateness of their original classification and, in some cases, changes in their classification require detailed examination. It is clear that some of these incidents have been identified as very high risk but the number in this category is still to be determined.”
It said the authority was seeking to understand “how these issues have persisted despite the intense focus on this matter since it came to light and to establish how remedial measures may have been circumvented or their intention frustrated”.