This article is from page 2 of the 2007-04-24 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 2 JPG
in response to a Freedom of Information request show that the gardai concerned received €478,000 — an average pay out of €23,900 each.
The single greatest generator of overtime payments was the opera- tion at Shannon Airport last year to prevent any further incursions the Department of Justice stated that
the bill for the Shannon operation was €1.25 million.
“It 1s most unfortunate that there is a large amount of gardai tied up on duty in Shannon because of a few people who have made threats over the security of the airport,” said Councillor Madeleine Taylor-Quinn GaCoF
“These gardai would be far better used on the highways and byways of OFT ione
Cllr Taylor-Quinn said that the high overtime payments resulted from the failure of the current Gov- ernment to recruit the promised ad- ditional gardai for the force.
“It would be far more prudent to recruit the additional gardai rather than be paying out these sums in overtime,’ she said.
Nationally, the Government paid out over €100 million in overtime. The €102.6 million overtime bill in 2006 represents a 32 per cent in- crease on the €77 million spent on Garda overtime in 2005.
Operation Anvil last year led to sig- nificant overtime costs, according to a Department of Justice spokesman. The operation commenced in Dub- lin in May 2005 and was rolled out across the country in January 2006 targeting gun culture.
“Operation Anvil has been highly successful,” he said.
In Dublin, the operation resulted in 54,526 checkpoints; 6,250 arrests in connection with murder, seri- ous assaults, burglary, robbery and other serious offences; 26,497 drug searches; 1,543 firearms searches; 643 firearms seized or recovered; 10,520 vehicles seized and stolen property to the value of €17.2 mil- lion recovered.
A Garda’s payscale goes from €24,551 to €44,116 after 17 years service; a sergeant’s salary scales from €44,543 to €51,281, while an inspector can earn from €51,571 to