THE government is to announce a €200m investment in new IT systems to help gardai investigate cyber-crime and to update antiquated technology.
The investment follows concerns about the ability of the garda to investigate crimes such as hacking, online stalking, and the downloading of child pornography.
Cyber-crime has emerged as one of the biggest challenges facing the gardai. Force management has been severely criticised by child protection groups and garda representative bodies for failing adequately to resource the Computer Crime Investigation Unit (CCIU), which examines computer devices seized from suspects during investigations.
It can take the unit, which is part of the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation, up to four years to forensically examine devices thought to contain images of child abuse downloaded from the internet. In many cases computers, smartphones and tablets seized from people who download and trade in child-abuse images are not examined at all. Prosecution cases against suspects caught with indecent images have collapsed due to delays in examining computers.
Some of the funds will be used to create regional garda units to examine smartphones and computers to assist detectives. Other funds will be allocated to introduce a computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system to allow gardai to respond to emergency calls more efficiently.
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CAD systems will allow management to monitor how gardai respond to calls for assistance. A report published by the Garda Inspectorate earlier this year said it took between two and four years for gardai to forensically examine computers. The report highlighted how the issue could affect the management of high-risk offenders.
It noted: “The CCIU is struggling to deal with the volume of work and has a significant backlog. A substantial part of this backlog relates to the examination of computers seized from those suspected of possessing indecent images of children. The delays are impacting on the progress of investigations and the management of potentially high-risk offenders.
“Other policing jurisdictions also face problems with delays in computer analysis, but not to the extent in Ireland. Solutions used in other police services have included taking computer analysts out on searches and providing hand-held technology that allows cursory examinations to be conducted at the time of a policing operation, in order
to determine if there is evidence on a computer or other device.”
The CCIU systems currently in use are said to be antiquated and unable to break through modern encryption software.
A spokesman for Frances Fitzgerald, the justice minister, said she had been working closely with Brendan Howlin, the minister for public expenditure and reform, to support the development of garda systems to meet the realities and expectations of 21st-century policing.
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The spokesman said Fitzgerald hoped to make significant announcements shortly in relation to garda IT systems.