Gardaí slam online crime reporting as ‘unhelpful’
By Mary Dennehy
THE growing practice of people turning to online community sites to report crimes rather than alerting their local Garda station was raised as a concern by Garda chiefs this week.
The trend was discussed at this month’s Joint Policing Committee [JPC] meeting in County Hall, when Superintendents from Tallaght, Rathfarnham, Clondalkin and Lucan discussed how social media can be “unhelpful” to their investigations – and generate undue fear among communities.
This growing trend was also discussed at last month’s Lucan, Palmerstown and North Clondalkin local policing forum which, as reported in The Echo, slammed “irresponsible” social media posts – which have the potential to “terrorise” residents.
While local Garda chiefs see the benefit in online community and neighbourhood watch pages, they expressed concerns at Friday’s JPC over the number of people reporting criminal activity online – and not to their local station.
The senior officers stressed that Gardaí need reports to build intelligence, and do not trawl through online sites looking for information.
A number of councillors present at the JPC meeting believe that there is an onus on Gardai to encourage the community while at public meetings to contact Gardaí before posting on Facebook.
Fine Gael councillor Colm Brophy said: “Communities need to be reminded that the reporting channels are the Garda.
“When reporting incidents or if they have information, people should think of the Garda as the primary reporting channel.”
Chief Superintendent Pat Clavin, of the DMRW Region, said: “At all times Gardaí encourage people to report their crimes to a guard.
“We’re probably a little behind at times when it comes to social media and at times are playing catch-up, but we would always encourage people to report crimes to Gardaí.”
It was decided at the meeting to look into staging a public awareness meeting around responsible social media.
The seminar would target community groups, neighbourhood watch pages and residents’ associations and discuss the dangers associated with social media and how to use it responsibly, ensuring that page administrators can also protect themselves.
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