Keeping people safe

Thomas Lyons caught up with the new Superintendent for Cavan Padraic Jones to discuss policing in a pandemic, the importance of community policing and the "challenges faces the force locally"...

A public attitude survey released at the end of last year showed An Garda Síochána enjoyed a 90% trust rate. After a turbulent few years that took a toll on public confidence, Garda morale and the leadership structure of the organisation, things now appears to be smoothing out.

The data pre-dates the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic and a raft of legislation introduced to encourage people to comply with public safety measures. Unofficial data since suggests that public satisfaction in gardaí is positive overall.

Speaking to Pádraic Jones, the recently appointed superintendent who took on the role in the Cavan Division after the retirement of Jimmy Coen, that public confidence is understandable. He’s assured, confident and on top of his brief.

Supt Jones’ transfer to Cavan from Garda HQ in the Phoenix Park, Dublin is somewhat of a return. Over his 21 years of service with An Garda Síochána, the officer’s voyage through the ranks started in Dundalk before he “gradually” moved towards the Midlands. “I was promoted to Sergeant while serving in Bailieboro,” he tells theCelt.

A native of Dromard in Longford that first taste of serving in Cavan came in 2007. “It wasn’t alien to me. I’m originally from Longford, the Moyne side. I practically grew up in Arva, so I definitely know the county pretty well.”

Supt Jones says the affinity between North Longford and the Breffni county is apparent on the sporting fields: “Hugely, we’d be rooting for each other in sports, particularly football. Longford had a couple of good years. When I played football, you’d have a Cavan contingent coming over to watch us play, and vice versa. When Arva or Gowna were playing, we would have a few from Longford going over to support them.”

His appointment as inspector came while serving in Castlerea; and promotion to superintendent while undertaking a role in the human resources section of An Garda Síochána. During this time he was responsible for the roll out of a national project arranging duty planning for the whole service.

The diversity of roles have all helped build a particular approach to policing. “I’ve had quite a bit of time involved in crime investigations. At guard and sergeant level, I was involved in quite a bit of detective work,” Supt Jones tells the Celt.

“The benefits of having a background in investigations is that it emphasises the importance of attention to detail. With criminal investigation, you have to have a specific, detailed approach to things. As you move up through the ranks, you broaden your horizons. I’m conscious, I’m no longer just responsible for crime investigation, even though it’s one of the primary functions, but I have to bring the same skills to community policing or traffic policing,” he continues of his current brief.

The evolution of community policing is, in some ways, a return to traditional Garda values.

“Community policing is something I hope we’re very good at," Supt Jones says.

“We are all community policemen and women but I think there is a degree of specialisation required for community policing. And I’d be very keen to look at that across the Cavan district.”

The challenges of the last 12 months have seen officers engage and encourage the public.

The new Cavan Division Superintendent says public “buy in” was vital.

“I don’t think that was by accident. It was absolutely by design. We obviously take our lead from the Commissioner and from the public. We police by consent.

“A lot of other police forces don’t enjoy that relationship. The force has been reinvigorated during the last 12 months.”

Many things had to change when the shutters came down, but Supt Jones says it presented many positive opportunities for the force: “People don’t often realise the complexities of policing. We do an awful lot of things that are unseen and unheard. When the pandemic hit, many things were put on hold. That allowed us redeploy a lot of the resources that otherwise would have been tied up in other duties. We put them back out on the front line.

“In many ways we’re reaping the rewards of that. I know the public’s satisfaction levels with us have gone up. I’d like to keep it there, if we can. That’s the challenge for us now, we’ve come so far and we have to keep that momentum going.”

Supt Jones speaks of the four Es that have been the cornerstone of An Garda Síochána’s approach to dealing with Covid related offences; Engagement, Explain, Encourage, and Enforcement: “It’s a graduated policing response. Unfortunately there are times where we have to go to the enforcement, but for the most part the public have been very much on our side. We appreciate that, and we appreciate hugely the co-operation we’re getting from the public. For me that’s really edifying to have, and to see that there’s a greater relationship between the public and the guards and certainly something I see us building on in the future.”

The outside observer may note that the appointment of Drew Harris to the role of Garda Commissioner of Ireland in September 2018 was the catalyst for change in the organisation. Supt Jones says this is shallow read.

“It’s been a collaboration of different things,” he surmises. “To quote Commissioner Harris himself a lot of the initiatives now coming to fruition were started before his time as Commissioner but, ultimately, he’s brought them across the line. I think sometimes you probably have to take a knock or two to rebound and come back stronger. I hope we did.”

He says the controversy of the pre-Harris years hid the real work the force was doing: “A lot of the good work that went on over the last number of years got lost with other events taking place at the time. There were fantastic number of high-profile investigations that were very well managed and very well conducted. They were taken to the courts and convictions were imposed by the courts.

“We were also responding to traffic accidents, to burglaries, to thefts from commercial premises. That’s what you might call the ‘business as usual’ we get on with every day, despite the fact other things are happening in the background. I think there’s great resilience among our people to go out and do the best they could,” he articulates.

For anyone assuming a new management position, assessing resources is a critical job of work. The new super feels Cavan is in good shape: “Like every superintendent across the country, if I got 10 more guards, could I put them to work? I absolutely could and I would be delighted to have them.

“There were significant resources allocated to the border region in anticipation of Brexit and Cavan enjoyed benefiting from those allocations. Obviously we always want more, but we’re in pretty good stead. The areas I have identified can be focused on because of the resources available. I’m looking forward to resourcing different areas a bit better to support the public in the next 12 months. These won’t be office jobs, but actual front line jobs where the communities would see a benefit.”

After taking stock of the present, the next assessment is the future: “I suppose our focus has changed the last 12 months hugely. Because of the obvious [Covid]. We’ve had to recalibrate what we do. I’d like to think we are taking a strategic approach, looking beyond the present.

“So what do we see on the rise in the next six to 12, 18 months? Where do we see the district performing better? At the moment public order isn’t the draw on resources it would normally be. So what do we do with those resources? Well, at the moment, we’ve redeployed them to front line policing. That will change as our colleagues in the HSPC and Department of Health get the vaccine roll-out underway and we see Ireland returning to some sort of normality.”

Normality will bring with it the hustle and bustle of weekend night life. Anyone, who in normal times drops in to the local district court to see what goes on, will see late night drinking and breach of the public order go hand in hand.

Post Covid there will be another reshuffling of resources. “I won’t put a date on it, but sometime in the future we will get back to something resembling what life used to be. There’ll be a social life and a social atmosphere around Cavan, Virginia and Ballyconnell. That will have a knock-on effect on public order,” he anticipates.

Another issue highlighted in Joint Policing Committee (JPC) meetings is the scourge the drugs presents to our communities: “There was significant concerns in Cavan in relation to the drugs issue. I have to acknowledge the work of my predecessor [Superintendent Jimmy Coen] and the inspectors who established the District Drug Unit. They have worked hand in glove with the Divisional Drugs Unit. From talking to people at the JPCs that has been a hugely positive influence. And the number of drug detections for 2020 really did skyrocket despite the fact we were in Covid.

“Our mission statement at the moment is ‘keeping people safe’. It’s a very simple couple of words, but I think our reaction to the drugs issue in Cavan and has been to keep people safe. So we’ve allocated those resources. They have been very positive in terms of detections. That has helped the image of the guards in Cavan, because we’ve tackled that problem head on. The feedback at the JPCs has been positive. Community policing is something that I think we’re going to have to look a little bit more closely at.”

Many of the changes Supt Jones refers to are deriving from the report “A Policing Service For The Future” (APSFTF). He says it’s an important document for the development of the force: “The recommendations made in the report look to enhance many areas of Garda governance, which is important, but also the redeployment or the allocation of as many Garda resources as possible to front line duties. So you’ll see there’s a massive civilianisation programme.

“Civilian members of staff allow the redeployment of gardaí to a front line job. So already we see there are efficiencies there. We get more people out, we’re getting them onto the street. We got them into a car, or hopefully in the future onto a mountain bike or on the beat around town.”

Supt Jones says the APSFTF document will mean his role will also change: “I have responsibilities for a number of different areas, but that will change in the future. I’m conscious that the APSFTF report has directed that we changed the way we police. We’re going towards a new operating model for the guards. That will gain more efficiencies. At the moment, I’m responsible for finance, human resources, firearms, crime investigation, juveniles, the whole gamut of policing. Currently they all rest with the superintendents.

“When the operating model comes in, and it has already come in in a number of divisions around the country, that will change the way we operate. There’ll be a certain number of superintendents allocated to community engagement roles. And then there be specific superintendents for governance, performance assurance, and crime investigation. At present you cover a myriad of different roles. You specialise as best you can, but we cover a huge variety of work.”

For now Supt Jones has identified areas he would like to see action in: “My priority is the proactive investigation of crime. In this district we have a profiler for criminal assets. If we identify an individual displaying signs of wealth and we have a reasonable cause to suspect they’re involved in criminality, we can profile their assets.

“That profile is sent on to the Criminal Assets Bureau, then depending on how that information ties in with other investigations, we may see criminal asset investigations operations taking place here. I want to use our CAB profiler to a better extent,” he says.

The importance of a dedicated community policing unit is another area to be addressed, while the challenges of policing a county with a significant rural and urban split is also on the agenda.

“From my own experience of urban and rural policing, it’s a different style of policing. So when you may have adequate resources in Cavan Town, on a given night to deal for a public order incident, you may not have those resources in other more rural parts of the district.

“You have to tailor your policing response accordingly. It does bring challenges...

“We have good numbers of personnel in rural areas. It comes back to keeping people safe. While Cavan Town may take more people because it’s more populous and the level of incidents are greater, we’re agile enough to redeploy to a particular area as the need arises.”

It’s a significant workload the new super is assuming, but one he appears well capable of coping with.