Most people in Ireland trust gardaí, survey finds
Satisfaction with Garda service to local communities and trust in the gardaí remained positive in 2023. Picture: Colin Keegan/ Collins
The majority of people in Ireland trust gardaí, a new survey has shown.
The Garda Public Attitudes survey interviewed 7,682 adults and 834 young people aged either 16 or 17 — the largest sample of young people since the resumption of the annual survey in 2015.
Sexual offences continued to be ranked as the highest priority for An Garda Síochána (91% of respondents).
Domestic abuse (90%), assaults and "human trafficking" (86% each), and illegal weapons (82%) also ranked highly.
Drugs offences ranked highly for those who considered local crime to be "a very serious" or "serious" problem (82%). Satisfaction with Garda service to local communities and trust in the gardaí remained positive in 2023.
Both measures are, however, negatively impacted by increased levels of fear of crime and its impact on quality of life — both of which showed increased levels in 2023. Eleven per cent of respondents reported having "a lot of fears" of crime, which was eight percentage points higher than in 2019.
Equally, those with "some fears" increased from 25% in 2019, to 37% in 2023.
Satisfaction with Garda service to local communities remained high in 2023, at 73%, though this is a 2% decrease from 2022 and represents a downward trend since pre-covid, when it stood at 80% in 2019.
Women were more likely to have a fear of crime than men.
When "a lot of fears" and "some" fears were combined, 52% of women reported fear, compared to 42% of men.
Non-Irish nationals held more positive views than Irish nationals across a number of areas.
They were 10% more likely to agree gardaí could be relied on to be there when needed, compared to Irish nationals (68%).
Satisfaction among victims with how gardaí handled their case stood at 53%.
When victims were dissatisfied with the service, reasons cited included poor response times (35%) and gardaí failing to arrest an offender (33%).
‘Other reasons’ included phoning a Garda station and no one phoning back, not being able to contact the investigating garda, and feeling the incident was not fully investigated.
Speaking on the publication of the results on Tuesday, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said: "I am pleased to see all of the positive feedback from those that took part in this independent study as it is a reflection of the consistent hard work of gardaí nationwide.
"There is much for us to take away from this survey, particularly in the area of keeping victims informed, to ensure that we are continually improving the vital service we provide to the people of Ireland.”
