I thank the Chairman and the other members of the committee for inviting me to address it. I will introduce my two colleagues who are with me. Ms Gwen Boniface is one of two deputy chief inspectors in our office. She rose through the ranks of the Ontario Provincial Police and served as commissioner of that organisation for eight years. She led the field inspection team in the roads policing review. Mr. John Brosnan is a career civil servant who holds the position of principal officer in the inspectorate. He has worked in the justice arena for most of his career and his contributions to our work have been invaluable. We are pleased to provide a briefing on the Garda inspectorate's fourth report, Roads Policing Review and Recommendations, and prepared to answer any questions members have, either on the report or other work of the inspectorate to date.
Before speaking on the contents of the roads policing report, it will be of benefit to the committee to outline the role of the Garda inspectorate, our approach to our work, inspection programme to date and commitment to ensuring our recommendations are implemented. This will enrich our discussions by setting the context in which the roads policing report was prepared.
As the committee is aware, the Garda inspectorate was established on 26 July 2006 in accordance with Part 5 of the Garda Síochána Act 2005. It has three members, each of whom has headed a major police organisation. Together, we have accumulated over 100 years of policing experience. Deputy chief inspector Robert Olson has worked primarily in urban policing environments in the United States. Ms Boniface and I have served in positions where we have been responsible for policing both urban areas and large tracts of rural territory. The inspectorate is supported by seven able civil servants. As a team, we bring a blend of knowledge and expertise relevant to the Irish policing landscape. At the same time, we do not claim to have all the answers. While many principles of democratic policing are universal and will apply whether in Boston, Toronto or Dublin, we recognise the need to listen carefully and respect the unique Irish culture in order to make sensible recommendations that will work in this environment.
It is important to explain the role of the inspectorate as it is often misunderstood. In fact, people frequently confuse us with the Garda Ombudsman Commission, an entirely separate body. Our role as an inspectorate is clearly encapsulated in section 117 of the Garda Síochána Act 2005 which states the inspectorate is "to ensure that the resources available to the Garda Síochána are used so as to achieve and maintain the highest levels of efficiency and effectiveness in its operation and administration, as measured by reference to the best standards of comparable police services".
The inspectorate attaches particular significance to the requirement in the 2005 Act that our reports contain recommendations for any action we consider necessary. Each of the inspectorate's reports to date contains action-oriented recommendations aimed at achieving greater efficiency and effectiveness in policing. It is our intention that future reports will be similarly focused.
Inspections in the Garda Síochána account for the main body of the inspectorate's work. In accordance with the 2005 Act, inspections are carried out at the request of, or with the consent of, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. The inspectorate is, by law, independent in the exercise of its functions. Once the terms of reference for an inspection are determined, it is solely a matter for the inspectorate to decide how an inspection is conducted and what material is included in the inspection report. The Garda inspectorate announces each upcoming inspection. We engage widely with persons inside and outside the Garda Síochána during the course of our work. We welcome all views and suggestions, including those of public representatives and people in the communities we all serve.
To be honest, I expected some resistance to the inspectorate when I first assumed this role but to date that has not been the case whatsoever. The inspectorate has experienced excellent co-operation from people we have encountered in our work. In particular, we are impressed by the openness and engagement of members of the Garda Síochána at all levels, particularly those engaged in front line policing.
When undertaking an inspection, we conduct a comprehensive review of Garda practices in a particular topic area and benchmark the Irish police against similar police services in other democracies. Our goal is to make sensible, best practice recommendations that will result in safer communities, increased police officer safety and greater operational efficiency. The inspectorate strives to produce succinct reports containing action-oriented recommendations attuned to the unique cultural conditions of the Irish policing environment. The reports are laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas prior to publication. By way of follow-up, the inspectorate publishes biannual reports on our website, www.gsinsp.ie, outlining the current status of recommendations flowing from our inspections. The latest status report was issued in December of 2008. It provides an update on implementation of the 134 recommendations made in our first three reports. As indicated, more than 50% of those recommendations have been implemented.
The Garda inspectorate has published four reports, including the one on roads policing. I will not comment at this point on the first three published reports, but I certainly will address any questions the committee may have about them. We have two inspections in progress. One relates to resource allocation in the Garda Síochána. We are analysing the Garda workload and the organisation's deployment strategy. This inspection is well advanced. Our other ongoing inspection relates to missing persons. We are considering the case for a dedicated missing persons unit in the Garda Síochána and the merits of establishing an "amber alert" type programme. The field work for this inspection has been completed and preparation of the draft report has begun.
This brings me to the centrepiece of our discussions today, which is our roads policing report. During 2008, 276 people lost their lives in collisions on Irish roads. While each road traffic death is an horrific tragedy, significant progress has been made in recent years and lives have been saved. The 2008 figure represents a significant reduction of 62 deaths from 2007. The contrast is even more dramatic when compared with 458 road traffic deaths in 1998, notwithstanding the growth in traffic volumes in the interim. Legislators, the Garda Síochána and road safety partner organisations should be credited with developing a concerted programme of engineering, education and enforcement actions that have changed driver behaviour and brought about this very positive result. One measure of this success is the fact that in 2007, Ireland was ranked ninth in the top ten EU performing countries in road safety, which is up five places from its previous ranking of 14th in 2005.
Given that these trends have moved in a positive direction and that numbers in the Garda Síochána traffic corps have been increased substantially, one might ask why the Garda inspectorate chose to undertake an inspection of roads policing at this time. We did so for two reasons. First, notwithstanding the very considerable reductions in fatalities in recent years, there is no room for complacency. There are too many deaths on Irish roads and people are concerned about it. Second, it will be a challenge for Ireland to achieve its EU target of no more than 252 road deaths by 2012. That is 24 fewer than last year, when Ireland recorded its lowest number of road deaths since record keeping began in 1958.
Since assuming our positions during the summer of 2006, we have heard a great deal about roads policing. We have listened carefully to the police, the community and, indeed, members of the committee and their colleagues. In undertaking this inspection, our hope was to contribute further to the very considerable efforts already under way. The Garda inspectorate undertook an extensive programme of meetings as part of the roads policing inspection. Fieldwork began with briefings from the assistant commissioner responsible for the Garda National Traffic Bureau and his staff at Garda headquarters. The inspection team visited the Louth-Meath, Cork city, Galway west, Kerry and Donegal Garda divisions, as well as the northern and western divisions and traffic corps of the Dublin metropolitan region. The inspection team also met leaders and members of the Garda representative associations. External to the Garda Síochána, the team met the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, the Department of Transport, the Road Safety Authority, the Medical Bureau of Road Safety and the County and City Managers' Association. The team was grateful for the opportunity to engage with representatives of Mothers Against Drink Driving, Co-operation and Working Together, and Public Against Road Carnage.
The inspectorate undertook international benchmarking by meeting and sourcing materials from a number of police services. The team consulted Ms Annette Sandberg, a roads safety expert who formerly held a number of senior posts, including administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration of United States Department of Transportation and chief of the Washington State Patrol. The roads policing inspection was conducted in collaboration with Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, who were jointly undertaking a similar roads policing study in Northern Ireland. All of these meetings and contacts informed the findings and recommendations of the roads policing report. I am pleased to have this opportunity to thank publicly all concerned for their time, insight and suggestions. While I do not propose to speak at length on the contents of the report, I would like to mention a few highlights. The inspectorate’s report recognises the establishment and strengthening of the Garda National Traffic Bureau, GNTB, as being significant in bringing the Garda Síochána’s roads policing function to its current state of development. The GNTB has performed great work. It provides a central reference point for roads policing in terms of policy formulation, internal and external communication, research and analysis and inter-agency collaboration.
The inspectorate recommended that the GNTB continue to develop as the hub of the Garda roads policing initiative. In the future, the GNTB should clearly define and communicate Garda policy and procedures for roads policing and monitor implementation by front line gardaí. The bureau should promote training to update gardaí on case law and legislative provisions and ensure adherence to quality standards.
It is my hope all reports of the Garda Síochána inspectorate will have a positive impact on front line policing and the roads policing report is no exception. It records our concerns about a number of front line issues in roads policing that were brought to our attention by gardaí in the field. Among the more significant were dual reporting relationships of traffic personnel and local superintendents and regional traffic superintendents; the concerns of local superintendents about the need for a greater input in designating the locations for speed enforcement measures; and the need for more co-ordinated deployment of traffic corps and regular Garda units. The inspectorate understands Garda management is addressing some of the issues identified and we will continue to monitor their progress.
The inspectorate raised a number of issues in the report relating to probationer and in-service training. Lack of sufficient driver training for the police is a very significant concern and the report recommends specific measures to address it. Approximately 2,600 gardaí operate vehicles with "chief's permission" without the benefit of having undertaken a driving course. This is a serious safety issue for both gardaí and the public. The Garda Síochána must develop a comprehensive driver training programme that will effectively instruct all members in the safe operation of police vehicles. When benchmarking against other police services, the inspectorate learned that the vast majority required applicants to possess driver licences prior to employment. The inspectorate believes this is a reasonable pre-employment requirement in modern policing. It referred to these issues in the presentation to the training review group appointed by the Commissioner. It also raised other potential safety concerns. For instance, gardaí should be better trained in respect of performing traffic stops. Likewise, there is a need for more procedural guidance on conducting roadside inspections of heavy goods vehicles. A Garda roads policy manual or handbook would address these and other important roads policing practices.
Technology is an extremely valuable tool for modern police services. The inspectorate identified a number of technology issues in the roads policing report. The most important relates to the introduction of an automatic number plate recognition system, ANPR. This system which will be in operation in the Garda Síochána in the current year has significant potential to enhance the performance of front line gardaí. It utilises cameras to read licence plates and check them against computer records. Where a match indicates an issue to be addressed such as, for example, stolen vehicles or wanted criminals, the police officers are immediately alerted. Police agencies using this system routinely such as the PSNI, the North Wales Police and the London Metropolitan Police Service speak of its effectiveness in both roads policing and a variety of deployments.
The development of an information system to deliver timely and reliable roads policing data is essential to monitoring and evaluating roads policing outputs and outcomes. The inspectorate has recommended that the GNTB should work with partner agencies to develop integrated information systems incorporating the full range of roads policing activity, including volumes of enforcement, interventions, detections, fixed penalties, prosecutions, convictions and other activities. We look forward to developments in this regard.
In recent years Garda focus has been on achieving two important roads policing goals, namely, increased visibility as a means of influencing positive driver behaviour and increased traffic law enforcement targeting those who put road users at risk. The Garda Síochána continues to post impressive enforcement activity statistics. For example, in 2007 gardaí issued 198,989 speeding notices and made 199,837 drink driving detections.
The challenge for the Garda is to look beyond increasing enforcement activity levels and to develop strategies targeted at achieving outcomes. The most important outcome is the reduction in the number of road traffic fatalities. Garda management seems to recognise the need for a more strategic approach. For instance, the relocation of checkpoints to well-researched collision prone zones has been a positive move and is an example of adopting a more outcome-focused strategy.
In recent years, the Garda has made significant and positive strides in roads policing. Its commendable contribution to road safety is reflected in the downward trend in road fatalities and injuries, most notably in 2008. Far from a criticism of Garda roads policing efforts, the inspectorate's report is intended to offer support and encouragement in the process of further development of the Garda's roads policing function. The inspectorate hopes that implementation of the recommendations in this report will enhance the contribution of the Garda to overall road safety. We will closely monitor progress throughout the implementation phase.
I thank the Chairman and the committee for inviting us and allowing me to make this presentation. The deputy chief inspector, Ms Boniface, Mr. Brosnan and I will be pleased to answer members' questions and to discuss aspects of our work that may be of particular interest to them.
