Nearly €3.6m in overpayments made to gardaí or civilian members over the last 2.5 years

Ken Foxe

Nearly €3.6 million in overpayments were made to gardaí or civilian members of the police force over the past two and a half years.

An Garda Síochána said that payments totalling €2.7 million were incorrectly made to over 1,450 officers since the start of 2023.

Of that total, around €1.32 million has so far been recouped from officers, according to data that was released under Freedom of Information laws.

A further €877,037 in overpayments were made to 555 civilian members of An Garda Síochána during the same period.

From that, less than €330,000 has so far been recouped.

The average overpayment to a garda was around €1,870 while the average overpayment for a civilian member was €1,580.

The amount of money wrongly paid out did fall last year; overpayments in 2023 totalled €1.5 million before dropping to €1.34 million in 2024.

However, the figure for the first six months of this year was €737,000 and is on track to exceed €1.4 million if trends continue.

The level of overpayment has been raised repeatedly at the garda’s Audit and Risk Committee, according to internal documents.

At one stage, they sought a “root cause analysis” to determine why so much cash was being paid out in error.

The findings of that analysis showed 73.4 percent of overpayments related to sick leave arrangements for members or staff.

Around 10 percent of cases were “pay errors” and 3.4 percent were classified as other payroll system errors.

Incorrect calculation of allowances was the cause of 4.8 percent of overpayments while 3.4 percent related to “family friendly” work arrangements.

There were another 4.7 percent of cases that were categorised as “other” with no further detail provided.

Asked about the records, a spokesman said An Garda Síochána had policies and processes in place to minimise overpayments and to recoup the money involved.

He said: “Overpayments to staff can occur for many reasons, including late notifications of leave, management of sick leave related payments, recoupment of allowances on delayed notification of resignation or retirement, or errors.

“An Garda Síochána provides advisory support to personnel to ensure that fair arrangements for recoupment of overpayments is achieved. The Employee Advisory Service provides this service where hardship is advised.”