The bizarre 999 call in Ireland was one of many highlighted by officers raised concerns about what they were being sent to. They were also sent to reports of a suicidal dog and a birds’ nest
Police officers were sent to stop a bus after a woman complained another passenger was eating cheese and onion crisps and she didn’t like the smell. The bizarre call to 999 call handlers in Ireland was one of many highlighted by officers raised concerns about being sent to. They were also sent to reports of a suicidal dog and a birds’ nest.
The Irish Mirror learned that a call taker in a control room directed gardai to attend the bus after receiving a complaint from a woman on board. She was angry that another passenger was eating the crisps on the bus and refused to put them away. The passenger rang gardai and the call taker directed a Garda car with two members in it to go to the bus and board it, but the officers refused.
“The garda who took the call was directed to stop the bus and board it, but he refused as he did not believe it was a criminal matter,” a source said. The source also said the officer made a complaint about being directed to board the bus during the incident, which happened in Galway.
News of the incident emerged at the annual conference in Killarney, Co Kerry of the 11,200-strong Garda Representative Association, which represents rank and file members of the force; The conference heard claims that gardai are being sent to pointless calls. Garda Dan Ryan, who represents officers in Carlow, said: “Currently, there’s no triage policy with the Control Room.
“We recently got dispatched to a call where a person rang in believing that her dog was suffering from mental health problems and was going to take his own life. Yet this was sent to us to deal with given the current policy that it’s a call for service. We have to go to everything. We have to go. We had to go speak with this lady.
“We went up, we attended, and I have no concerns for the dog’s welfare at all but the serious aspect of this is that is two gardai who have been taken out of action to deal with this call. You would receive calls like this quite occasionally, not specifically about suicidal dogs, but like kind of silly calls like those.
“There was another one there recently in south Kerry where someone rang in because there was a pheasant hanging around in a pub car park. It’s a wild bird. What are we supposed to do there?” Garda Peter Firth, from Waterford, also told the conference that there was a fear of cancelling such calls because personnel in control rooms were worried they would be disciplined. He said: “People are very slow to cancel calls because gardaí are worried that a member of the public might complain or that someone in management might perceive a call that we didn’t attend as one we should have.
“Again it’s a fear of discipline. We are getting calls that are never a policing matter and they’re being responded to by An Garda Síochána. Sometimes those responses are absolutely laughable. A couple of lads in the southeast were sent because a neighbour called and said she was concerned about young birds’ nest in someone’s house and that they might not have been able to get out because the people were on holidays.
“Because we’re not declining those calls, the requests become more acceptable over time, it becomes its own monster. The members in the control room have to make the decision and they have no faith in the policy that they won’t be disciplined. There’s a knock-on effect to that as well. Gardaí in patrol cars are driving to non-emergency matters. If you’re in a rural area and you have to drive long distances to some places – finite resources dragged to things that are not garda issues.”
Gardai said in response to queries about such calls that the force had introduced a new computer-aided dispatch system known as GardaSAFE in 2023. The force said in a statement: “This new system enhances and improves our response and allows more efficient use of our resources thereby ensuring that the public receive the best possible response.
“GardaSAFE sees all calls requiring the dispatch of a Garda resource handled by a number of regionally located control centres. These control centres are staffed by trained call takers and call dispatchers.
“Community policing is the provision of a policing service to the whole community both urban and rural through a partnership based, proactive, problem solving style of policing. It is focused on community engagement, crime prevention and law enforcement and addresses crime and policing quality of life issues affecting communities.”
