Garda overtime bill in Laois Offaly Division rose to €3.8m last year

Garda overtime payments in the Laois Offaly Garda Division rose to over €3.8 million last year. 

New figures released by An Garda Síochána reveal that last year's figures spiked by 20%, up from €3.2m in 2022. Between April and June 2023 was the busiest period when a bill of €1.4 million was racked up in Garda overtime in the division. 

There was a further €56,448 spent on overtime for civilian members of the force locally in 2023. That's a drop from €69,611 spent on Garda staff overtime in 2022. 

Commenting on overtime bills An Garda Síochána say: "The nature of Garda work and the requirement that the Garda authorities respond, in some cases at short notice, to immediate policing demands means that there is a necessity to incur overtime expenses to ensure effective policing. Accordingly, there will always be a need for a certain level of overtime to allow An Garda Síochána flexibility when responding to circumstances that require additional resources for specific operations. These additional resources will have to be over and above those available from Gardaí on rostered duty thus ensuring the continuation of normal policing duties unabated.

"In addition a number of police led operations, in various years, required the deployment of extra resources on overtime. This includes the implementation of anti-crime and anti-burglary initiatives such as Operation Anvil and Operation Thor. Similarly non-crime related events and events organised by interest groups within the general public can require overtime to police effectively as additional Gardaí may need to be deployed to ensure public safety."