Massive deficit in Gardai needed to investigate road deaths, GRA conference told

Irish Daily Mirror

30-04-2025

The Garda unit that investigates fatal road smashes has fewer than half the number of officers the organisation's own roads policing experts recommend, it has emerged.
The annual conference of the Garda Representative Association, which represents some 11,200 members of the force, also heard that the specialist officers are having to drive all over the country on jobs - with one garda being sent from Tipperary to north Donegal.
The conference heard on Tuesday that the National Roads Policing Bureau says there should be 24 forensic collision investigators - but there are only 11.
And the conference, held in Killarney, Co Kerry, heard that means the specially-trained officers have such a massive workload that they cannot provide the service they want to. The association is now calling for more investigators to be appointed.
Garda Shane Bonner, who is based in south central Dublin and represents FCIs, or Forensic Collision Investigators, based at the roads policing section in Dublin Castle, says the problem needs fixing urgently.
He said: "We're seeing a huge shortage of FCIs, the forensic collision investigators in the organisation at the moment..
"We're falling really, really short in what we're doing and what the service that the Garda Siochana are providing.
"People are waiting for answers. We have a fatal accident, and people are waiting for the answers... They want to know what happened, how it happened. The outcomes.
"The workload is so heavy at the moment on the FCIS that they're snowed under.
"We have 11 FCIs in the country at the moment. There's a Garda Roads Policing Bureau recommendation of a minimum of 24."
He also revealed that one FCI probed 18 fatal accidents in a year - three times what he should have.
And he added that a competition for officers to start working as FCIs collapsed - and gardai were not told why.
He said: "We had a competition which collapsed because, well, we don't really know why. It just stopped.
"Management sent out a quick note to the people that were in it, saying, 'Sorry, this competition hasn't met standards, and we've stopped it.'
"We have our 11 FCIs that have been dragged all over the country.
"We're potentially losing evidence. We're leaving scenes closed for longer. We're not doing the best that we can, we aren't giving the service that we need to be giving.
"The reason for that is very simple: Garda management.
"The commissioner isn't giving us the FCIs. It's been run into the ground.
"We have members that can't do the work now that they're just so snowed under.
"One member last year did 18 fatal accidents; the recommended number is five to six in a year. So he has three times the workload.
"How do you produce proper files and proper investigations to the coroner's court, to the family, to everyone that deserves the proper information?"
And he said there was an easy solution to the problem.
He said: "It's a very simple fix. This isn't complicated. We're not calling for a whole new departure. We're calling for proper numbers of specifically trained and qualified experts that can do it."
Garda Chris O'Mara, who is an FCI based in Tipperary, told the conference he was the only expert available in the entire country to deal with a fatal crash - and was sent from his home base to north Donegal, a journey of more than 300 kilometres.
He said: "It was Saturday morning when I got the call.
"I could have got in the car there and then and gone, but I would have been then arriving into a dark scene, which would have made the investigation difficult or impossible, depending on the scenario that I would have encountered.
"Instead, I left at three o'clock in the morning. I arrived there for first light.
"I did the investigation over the course of the day, and finished it around four o'clock that day.
"The collision had occurred at 10 o'clock on the Friday night, and it was Sunday morning, half seven, I think by the time I arrived at the scene.
"I was told I was the only investigator available in the country."
Garda Bonner said that case highlighted a serious problem.
He said: "When you have an investigator that's travelling from Tipperary to north Donegal, just to do a scene, this is an unbelievable shortfall.
"He's (then back) down in Tipperary trying to deal with the guards in Donegal who are dealing with the investigation, and not being able to just walk into the office or call in and see.
"There's conferences, there's everything held. He won't be able to go back to Donegal. The actual service that is available, then is completely crushed and not working. It doesn't work."
Garda O'Mara also revealed that the officer who was the force's senior National Forensic collision investigator resigned in 2023 - and the vacancy has not been filled.
He said: "That role has been vacant since he resigned in 2023.
"So for more than two years now, we've had no senior forensic collision investigator in the country."
A Garda spokesman told us a preliminary process was under way prior to announcing a new competition for FCIs in the near future.