A person who reports an incident to An Garda Siochána will have their case investigated by a specially trained officer, instead of by the first officer who records the complaint.
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Mark Toland, the deputy chief inspector of the Garda Síochána Inspectorate, provided details of the planned new unit, when he spoke at the Oireachtas Committee on Justice recently.
“We have recommended the creation of a specialist unit in a garda division that investigates serious sexual assaults, domestic violence cases, and child sexual abuse,” he said.
“The commissioner has committed to introducing those units. We are waiting for the dates, but three of those units are likely to be formed fairly soon, one of which we believe will be in Cork City.”
Mr Toland said certain crimes should not be investigated by a newly trained garda or someone without detective experience. “If my daughter was the victim of a serious sexual assault, I would want a detective trained in the investigation of sexual assaults to investigate it,” he said. “Domestic violence was another area we examined in crime investigation, and, again, we found that there were very few arrests. Sometimes, the crimes were not always correctly recorded.”
Mr Toland said that, in the future, when a victim comes into a garda station the new unit would be contacted and, if it is a sexual assault, a specially trained officer, not just a detective, would investigate.
Mark Toland, the deputy chief inspector of the Garda Síochána Inspectorate, provided details of the planned new unit, when he spoke at the Oireachtas Committee on Justice recently.