- 81% of People Satisfied with Service from An Garda Síochána
- 96% agreed that Gardaí would treat them with respect if they had contact with them for any reason.
- Majority of respondents (72%) consider An Garda Síochána modern and progressive
- Trust in An Garda Síochána continues to remain very high at 92%
- 18% of respondents perceived crime in their local area as serious or very serious
Since 2016, perceptions of An Garda Síochána’s effectiveness and capability have been steadily improving and the Q3 Garda Public Attitudes Survey has continued this trend with increases in the perceptions of ‘An Garda Síochána being friendly and helpful’ at 95%, ‘modern and progressive’ at 72%, ‘well managed’ at 63% and ‘community focused’ at 76%.
Satisfaction levels with the service provided to local communities has also continued in an upward trend with Q3 2019 showing the highest level since 2016 (81%).
This quarter also saw 66% of survey respondents report that their fear of crime had no impact on their quality of life – an increase of 6% from the same quarter of 2018. The proportion of respondents who do not worry about becoming a victim of crime at all is up 5% from Q3 2018 to 55%.
As with previous quarters, respondents continue to view local crime as less serious than national crime. In Q3, 18% of respondents perceived crime in their local area as serious or very serious. This has remained relatively the same over the last four quarters.
96% of survey respondents agreed that Gardaí would treat them with respect if they had contact with them for any reason. Q2 and Q3 of 2019 saw the highest agreement level with this statement over the last five quarters.
88% also agreed that Gardaí in their local area would treat everyone fairly regardless of who they are, an increase of 9% from the same quarter in 2018.
The number of respondents who agree Garda relations are poor has been steadily declining since Q3 2018. 24% agreed with this statement in Q3 2019 – a decrease of 8% from Q2 2019.
Similarly, less respondents are agreeing that Gardaí are not dealing with things that matter to the local community. This figure has seen a decrease from 43% in Q3 2018 to 29% in Q3 2019.
77% agreed that the Gardaí can be relied upon to be there when needed, an increase of 5% from Q2 2019, and the highest figure in the last five quarters.
Commenting on the overall survey Deputy Commissioner, Policing & Security, John Twomey said: "These very welcome results demonstrate the quality of work being done by Garda personnel to keep people safe. It also shows that the public are seeing the benefits of changes being made to the organisation. We do though have further improvements to make in a number of areas including victim support.”
