# Making a statement to An Garda Siochana



## whiskey1 (24 May 2011)

If you go in to a Garda station to make a statement, do the Gardai have to take your statement?


----------



## csirl (24 May 2011)

whiskey1 said:


> If you go in to a Garda station to make a statement, do the Gardai have to take your statement?


 
A statement is usually something that is requested by the Gardai, so it is difficult to see any circumstances wherebyt he Gardai would ask someone to make a statement and then not take it.

If you mean making a complaint re: someone breaking the law, yes, I'd imagine that the Gardai would make a note of all complaints they receive.


----------



## JoeB (24 May 2011)

They must treat you woth courtesy and respect. They probably don't have to take statements relating to trivial matters, or statements relating to matters that don't interest them.

I.e Meteor Mobile overcharged approx 400,000 to 500,000 customers in January 2010, and they refuse to refund it. Revenus accept that the overcharging is real, and did take place. The police won't take statements on this, and won't do anything about it. This is because COMREG exist, even if they don't do their job. (We're in breach of an EU directive,  like the septic tank thing from last week, where Ireland ignored a EU court order, and we're now back in a EU court to explain our refusal to observe the law. Would the Garda take complaints relating to that issue, even if the law is being broken?, I doubt it)


----------



## whiskey1 (24 May 2011)

> If you mean making a complaint re: someone breaking the law, yes, I'd imagine that the Gardai would make a note of all complaints they receive.


After you have made the complaint and the Gardai have taken notes, and you then voluntarily want to make a statement do the Gardai have to take your statement?


----------



## JoeB (24 May 2011)

Well, I recently reported a break in into my van. The Garda took a verbal statement, making a minimum of notes. But I did receive a letter giving a pulse number, one to two weeks later, and it was entered onto the Garda system. I expect this to be an 'un-detected' crime in the end.

I'm not sure though, maybe I'm being harse. I did tell the Garda about two overlooking CCTV cameras,.. not sure if they checked them. The Garda dropped a letter into me, three to four weeks later, asking for me to contact them re: a statement. I wanted to make a detailed statement, and the date the Garda recorded for the crime is wrong, as per my Pulse letter. Wrong day of the week. I wanted to tell the Garda the exact position of my van in the carpark,.. they weren't too intertested. I wanted to do this immediately after the crime... I feel giving this information one month after the crime is a bit pointless. The Garda never took model numbers or decriptions of the items stolen... at least not sufficient. I.e Drill, as opposed to a particular make and model.

I'll be dissapointed if the CCTV footage was never examined. I could have sought it myself under the Data Protection laws, but I assumed the Garda would do it.

Perhaps the Garda are under resourced,.. so perhaps some crimes don't get investigated.


----------

