Overcrowding forces gardai to work in four-star hotel rooms
Gardai are being forced to work in specially rented hotel rooms because there is no space for them at their garda station, it emerged last night.
The officers, attached to Tallaght garda station in Dublin, are using the rooms in the four-star Plaza hotel to carry out day-to-day duties and to store work materials.
The extraordinary use of a commercial hotel for police work, with the taxpayer picking up the tab, was described as a disgrace by Labour TD Pat Rabbitte.
He raised the issue as Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy yesterday appeared before the joint Oireachtas Committee on justice, equality, defence and women's rights.
Mr Rabbitte said repeated promises to get a new police station built in Tallaght, which has a population of 79,000 people, had been ignored.
"This is a disgrace," Mr Rabbitte said afterwards. "The excuse for this is, the accommodation isn't there. And it's true -- the accommodation isn't there. The original building was built in a field. It is now built up all around it and is unsuitable and incapable of accommodating the gardai -- it's overflowing.
"The idea of a public-private partnership was to build a huge new building. But, for the last three years, nothing has happened and now they have been forced to take rooms in an adjacent hotel," he said. "I only became aware of it when someone told me a number of the rooms are blocked for members of the Garda Siochana."
It was unclear last night how many rooms are rented by the force, how much it pays for the rooms, or whether it is a daily or weekly rate.
"I have no idea if it is 40 rooms or 20 rooms. It is just the fact they have been forced to get additional accommodation and to take it in a hotel," said Mr Rabbitte.
He pressed Mr Murphy on the matter during the Oireachtas committee, but said later outside the meeting that the question had been avoided.
"That's my umpteenth time of politely trying to find out what's going on,'' he said.
"You can either draw the conclusion from that, that the Commissioner didn't want to answer or he doesn't know.''
The commissioner confirmed outside the Leinster House meeting room that hotel rooms were being used as office space for the garda station.
Asked whether there were security concerns about gardai working in hotel rooms, Mr Rabbitte said: "They will probably tell you they have provided against that.
"But it's unusual and highlights in a dramatic way the scarcity of urgency of getting on with the PPP project.
"I mean, what part of the country has a population of 79,000 and just one garda station?" asked Mr Rabbitte.
The disclosure came as the commissioner spoke about how he was going to deal with budget cutbacks to overtime and that he would prioritise policing in "hotspots".
"It is common public knowledge I have less money than last year. The sums are quite clearly there. For me, it is about priorities," he said.
"We are having to play our part in putting our shoulder to the wheel and to cut out the unnecessary fat."
Mr Murphy also revealed the new €37m TETRA radio communications system is about to be rolled out this year, and will be all over the country by 2011.
The system will replace the current garda communications network, which is seen as hopelessly ill-equipped to deal with the needs of the force.
- Ciaran Byrne
