Laois Garda Superintendent rejects official Garda drug unit statistics

Official figures suggesting only one garda was allocated to the garda drugs unit in Laois Offaly have been denied by a Garda Superintendent. 

Deputy Brian Stanley raised the issue of allocations to the Drugs Unit at a recent Laois Joint Policing Committee meeting. 

Deputy Brian Stanley said figures given by the garda authorities at the end of year indicated that in total there was just one garda assigned to the Garda Drugs Unit in Laois Offaly. 

He said it was a major concern. He said in Tipperary the allocation was ten, in Wexford it was 11. 

“Is there a shortage of staff or has there been changes since the first of January?” Dep Stanley asked. 

Garda Superintendent Eamon Curley said the allocation to the drugs unit was a Sergeant and five Gardai working full time in Portlaoise. 

“That has been there since I have come here in January,” he said.  

While he wasn’t aware of the statistics being quoted by Dep Stanley, Supt Curley offered a possible explanation. 

“It is possibly due to the fact that the people that are employed in the drugs unit in Portlaoise  aren’t formally appointed as detectives, so they are there on a rotational element, but some of those people have been there for a long period of time,” said Supt Curley.  

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He said drug operations he had earlier referred to, would have involved staff from right across the entire district including staff from the drugs policing unit, staff from the regular units and community policing units.