Garda reserve force

And why don't your suspicions extend to the type of person who'd apply for the gardai proper? The same vetting will apply to both, in theory you should get similar people perhaps with a different age profile.

The aim of the reserve force is a visible presence - civilian staff can't do that. Maybe instead of running 2 checkpoints with 6 gardai you run 3 with a couple reserves. Might save a couple lives.

Trainee guards are already used for visible presence. When you hear the GRA talking you'd swear 2 years is an enormous amount of training - churning out people who're crime fighting geniuses, martial art experts, superb legal brains, expert pursuit drivers - in reality the training produces none of this - just the groundwork that experience eventually fills in.

The real reason the GRA are opposed to the reserves is because it will expose to the public any inefficencies, bad work practices, slacking off etc. that can now be kept in house. There's little to stop a reservist deciding to publicize problems or going to the minister - he won't have to worry about his volunteer career or promotions, maybe the activities exposed by the Morris tribunal wouldn't have been so easy with a couple reservists around in the station.

For some gardai having volunteers around the place will be like having public inspectors keeping an eye on them, that's why the GRA are calling it Thatcherite and akin to privatization.

Any garda station I've seen could easily benefit from having people who've worked in the private sector passing on some experience, it's all logbooks, notebooks that wouldn't have been out of place in the 19th century let alone the 20th. CSI-Dublin it ain't, despite "pulse"...
 
The Gardai in the stations aren't responsible for the system with all the logbooks and notebooks. To assume that 'a few people with private sector experience' could rectify the system is facile in the extreme. Without understanding the complex legal requirements involved, the few private sector geniuses would undermine years of legal cases.

I don't buy the 'whistleblower' arguement. There are plenty of decent guards with strong representative organisations in place capable of bringing issues to the surface. We can't rely on unpaid volunteers for whistleblowing. If the current systems don't work, we need to fix them professionly, not with amateurs.
 
The Gardai in the stations aren't responsible for the system with all the logbooks and notebooks.
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No, but they have opposed any attempts at modernisation.
Without understanding the complex legal requirements involved, the few private sector geniuses would undermine years of legal cases.
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agreed but the same work could be done in a different way. Do you accept that the big ledger on the front desk cannot be the best way of doing things?
If the current systems don't work, we need to fix them professionly, not with amateurs.
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Iagree, but that still doesn't mean that a reserve is a bad thing.
 
It sounds like rainyday is with the usual union spokesperson line on this and to be fair he has stated his political viewpoint often enough for us to be aware of it.
But I think the rest of the country is sick to death with civil service unions fleecing this country on behalf of their members while refusing to give anything in return.
This isn't an untried and unsuccessful proposition, other countries successfully implement it and there is no way that we are unique in the world where for some reason all the wrong type of people will want to join an unpaid reserve force. Where we are unique is that we are a very well of small country where small effective solutions have large beneficial knock ons. Witness the success of the implementation of the new penalty points, this is soley down to manpower being directed at it in the aftermath of the announcement so as to make the minister look good but imagine if there were more gardai (fully trained or reserve) allocated full time.
The reserve force is a small minimal expenditure solution with the potential for big improvements, that can be easily disbanded if proved unsuccessful. Unless of course the same garda unions who opposed them suddenly like having more members and then start kicking up when it comes to disbanding them but that'd never happen.
 
icantbelieve said:
It sounds like rainyday is with the usual union spokesperson line on this
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He can defend himself but I don't think Rainyday is opposed the reserve for this reason.
 
Yesterday the Association of Garda Superintendents said that it's members approved of the idea of a reserve. Is it purely coincidental that they don't get overtime and those opposing the reserve do?
 
Only half listened to a news item on Radio/TV yesterday. It referred to the fact that promotion of Superintendents are political appointments unlike those further down. This would suggest a self interested motive for going with the Government. Open to correction.
 
Good point...
 
Anyone hear the "Joe Jacobs Moment" on RTE1 over the week-end.
A chief Supt. in the Gardai explained that there is no Gangland....just drug dealers falling out...and engaging in gun battles...and killing one another...eh..but no Gangland.
Maybe we should sack the lot and appoint as Garda Reserva the first 12,000 that turn up at, say Hatch 5, in Werburgh St. on a Monday morning.
We can always fiddle the crime figures if it doesn`t work and appoint a friendly polling company to prove how 99% of us think they`re doing a great job....maybe the same one the RUC/PSNI use.
 
I see the GRA are backing down from their threat to target government parties at the next general election. See[broken link removed] for details.I hope that this is the case as the politicisation of the police is not a good thing.
 
The main reason the Garda are up in arms is before it will effect their overtime who are they trying to kid, if my Boss came up with new plans for our company I would either have to like it or leave, I could not say I wont talk to this person have no contact and so on , I would be out on me ear and righty so,Mc Dowell is their Boss so they just have to grow up and do what they are told
 
dodo said:
if my Boss came up with new plans for our company I would either have to like it or leave, I could not say I wont talk to this person have no contact and so on , I would be out on me ear and righty so,
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Not true. If your boss expected you to do something that put your life or health at risk, you would be legally obliged to refuse his instruction.
 
RainyDay said:
Not true. If your boss expected you to do something that put your life or health at risk, you would be legally obliged to refuse his instruction.
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Who said anything about putting life or health at risk?!
 
Sending a guard out into a dangerous situation with a rookie who has had minimal training where the guard has no support and is expected to protect the rookie in addition to dealing with the dangerous situation may well be putting his life/health at risk.
 
A lot of garda activity could be said to be putting his or her life/health at risk to some extent, this is one reason why for the most part they've huge public respect.

Should the gardai refuse to deal with armed robberies due to health and safety, refuse to deal with gangland criminals, not try to stop joyriders. Should the gardai who were injured while protecting the public in that recent bus incident be disciplined for not obeying health and safety guidelines?

Gardai already go out on the beat with rookies/trainee gardai. Gardai have skill and judgement and know where and when the use of trainee gardai is reasonable.

The GRA are struggling to give even one good reason not to as least try the scheme out in some minimal form for a couple years. This health and safety reason is their latest dead end argument, maybe they should just go back to their brief and idiotic threat of waiting in the long grass - at least that had a bit of menace about it.
 
It's not that long ago that the gardai were only given 6 months training in Templemore, before being unleashed on the public, where they were expected to be experts in all matters of criminal law. Much of the time in Templemore was spent square basing and physical exercise. The Gardai when they came out had to deal with all aspects of the criminal law.

Of course this whole thing is about money. Major events could easily be policed by the new reserve working alonside and assisting the regular Gardai. This would eat into the potential overtime earnings of the rank and file Gardai, so they are hardly likely to welcome it.

Likewise, I cannot see how stopping cars for Tax and Insurance requires a huge amount of legal knowledge. The reservists would only be expected to deal with a very small part of the law.


Murt
 
ashambles said:
Gardai already go out on the beat with rookies/trainee gardai. Gardai have skill and judgement and know where and when the use of trainee gardai is reasonable.
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There is no sensible comparison between a trainee who has undergone 7-8 months of full-time training before being unleashed on the street with an unpaid volunteer who has had a few hours of training.
Murt10 said:
Likewise, I cannot see how stopping cars for Tax and Insurance requires a huge amount of legal knowledge. The reservists would only be expected to deal with a very small part of the law.
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You don't get to pick & choose what Gardai deal with what issues. They deal with whatever they encounter. The armed robber isn't going to wait for a 'real' guard to arrive from the station. The fatal car crash isn't going happen only when full-timers are around.
 
Can you ring up your local Garda Station to enquire about application forms for joining the Garda Reserve? lol!
 
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