To Order Patrols Public Of Boost Gardaí Unit In Quell To Incidents Dublin Centre

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Tue, 22 Aug, 2023 - 11:22

Cormac O’Keeffe, Security Correspondent

The public order unit will conduct daily ‘soft cap’ patrols in Dublin city centre as part of a major effort by Garda HQ to combat street violence, open drug-dealing and anti-social behaviour.

Also, a public order van carrying gardaí able to scramble into full riot-gear mode will be “roving” around the city centre to respond to any serious incidents.

A fifth of the extra overtime budget being given by the Government to Gardaí — €2m of €10m — is being allocated to the Public Order Unit to fund the patrols in the two Dublin central garda divisions.

Regular garda ‘soft cap’ patrols — which is the middle phase between the standard garda uniform and full riot-gear mode — are uncommon on the streets and reflect a significant policy shift by Garda bosses.

This unit is usually only put in place in response to concerns over public order at events, such as protests likely to attract tensions, or major public occasions. Patrols of the unit in ‘soft cap’ mode have already been spotted on Grafton Street, one of the locations where serious assaults have taken place in recent weeks.

The patrols will take place on both sides of the Liffey, in the Dublin North Central Division — which includes O’Connell Street and Talbot Street, also sites of recent serious assaults — and the South Central Division — which includes the Temple Bar area and Grafton Street.

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The recent serious assaults, including on tourists, in Dublin city centre has attracted considerable outrage domestically as well as international attention. Garda management are using a detailed ‘temporal analysis’ of local areas in the two divisions in their deployment both of the public order unit and regular gardaí.

In a statement just issued, Garda HQ said the €10m extra overtime will provide an expected 16,500 additional policing hours per month in Dublin city centre across the two divisions.

The statement said the fund will help “enhance visibility and target criminality”, including:

Enhanced garda presence at strategic locations across Dublin city centre;
Strong focus by gardaí on tackling street-level dealing, anti-social behaviour, and seizure of alcohol;
High impact visibility in Dublin city centre to target range of criminal activity;

“An Garda Síochána has started to use the €10m overtime provided by Government for policing in Dublin in a move that will deliver more than 16,500 additional policing hours per month in the city centre,” the statement said.

“In the course of Operation Citizen, there will be a strong focus by Gardaí on tackling street-level drug dealing, anti-social behaviour, and seizure of alcohol in Dublin city centre following the provision by Government of €10m in overtime for policing in the capital.”

It said there will be “an enhanced visible garda presence” at strategic locations in Dublin city centre “such as main thoroughfares and the Liffey boardwalk”.

It said: “The plan will see increased deployment of the Garda National Public Order Unit in the city centre with 20% of the €10m in overtime being dedicated to providing additional public order capacity in the city centre on a daily basis.”

It said that as well as uniform gardaí, specialist units such as the Garda Air Support Unit, the Garda Mounted Unit, the Garda Dog Unit, Regional Armed Response Units, and Road Policing Units will be deployed to enhance Garda visibility in the city centre.

The patrols will take place on both sides of the Liffey, in the Dublin North Central Division — which includes O’Connell Street and Talbot Street, also sites of recent serious assaults — and the South Central Division — which includes the Temple Bar area and Grafton Street. File photo: Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie

The statement said there will also be planned days of high impact visibility in the city centre involving checkpoints; execution of warrants; service of summonses; intelligence-led searches and arrests; immigration checks, and enforcement of road traffic offences.

The days of visibility will be replicated across the other Garda Divisions in the Dublin Metropolitan Region.

It said high-visibility patrols on the transport network in addition to patrols in the vicinity of transport services at peak times will be maintained under Operational Saul.

“The overall objective of our activity is to reassure the citizens, visitors and the business community that Dublin is a safe place in which to live, visit, and work. An enhanced visible policing presence is central to this objective,” said Assistant Commissioner, DMR, Angela Willis.

It is expected that the overtime will result in more than 16,500 additional policing hours per month being delivered in Dublin city centre across the two divisions. For the whole Dublin Metropolitan Region including the city centre divisions, the total additional policing hours per month is 48,500.

“As increased Garda activity in Dublin city centre has the potential to displace criminal activity to other Divisions in the Dublin Metropolitan Region (DMR), each of the other four DMR Divisions are receiving a proportion of the additional funding,” the statement added.

“These DMR Divisions support city centre policing in a number of ways. For example, patrols on the public transport network to deal with issues at source before impacting on the city centre.”

It said each DMR Division is delivering an operational plan with gardaí engaged in high-visibility patrolling and enforcement activity in specific areas based on crime trends and analysis of when crimes occur. This temporal analysis, which is compiled by the Garda Síochána Analysis Service, will be updated on a weekly basis.

The statement provided operational DMR operational figures for week ending August 20, 2023: