Gardaí to consider bringing in full-time cadaver dog, says Commissioner

By Cate McCurry, PA

An Garda Síochána is to consider bringing a full-time cadaver dog into the force to avoid being “entirely reliant on others”, the Garda Commissioner said.

Drew Harris said that the services of a cadaver dog are rarely used, and in his tenure has only been used on three occasions.

Speaking to reporters at Phoenix Park on Monday, Mr Harris said they will look at acquiring one.

Currently, gardaí use the services of one cadaver dog which belongs to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).

“A cadaver dog, thankfully, are rarely used, and on these islands there’s only a small number of these dogs,” Mr Harris said.

“In my tenure here, we have used these dogs in about three occasions. So, we work with support of the Police Service of Northern Ireland. We will look to see, in time, should we introduce a cadaver dog ourselves, because we don’t want to be entirely reliant on others, but others may rely on us if we have that dog available.

“A cadaver dog is not out every day working in the same way that a drugs, or firearms or money dog would be.

“It’s a very specialist resource.”

Mr Harris said using dogs in policing operations required specialist training, and that cadaver dogs are a subset of that which requires specialist work.

“Not often required operationally, it’s not a usual thing that we would need a cadaver dog,” he said.

It comes as the Minister for Justice raised concern with Mr Harris over how long it took to find the body of murder victim Tina Satchwell.

Jim O’Callaghan also said it would be preferable if An Garda Siochana had its own cadaver dog to help find human remains.

Asked whether a cadaver dog should have been brought into the Satchwell home in 2017 during the investigation, Mr O’Callaghan said “probably, it should have happened”.

He said he also spoke to Mr Harris about the effectiveness of cadaver dogs.

“They’re a very specialised dog in terms of trying to train them, there is one on the island of Ireland, the PSNI has one,” he said.

“That dog is sought by many police forces in Britain as well. We got the use of the dog here and he was of much assistance.”

Mr Harris said that the 2017 investigation into Mrs Satchwell’s disappearance is being reviewed.

“But what I know from the report I’ve seen, is that this suspicion was that harm had been caused to Tina Satchwell but there was no suspicion that her body was there,” Mr Harris added.