Major concerns have been raised about the gardai's capacity to deal with domestic abuse cases.
Divisional Protective Services Units (DPSU), established to deal specifically with such crimes, are not delivering the service they should be, the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI) conference in Killarney, Co Kerry heard.
Detective Inspector Brian Downey told how the reality is they are too overstretched to deal with such cases, unless it involves rape.
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Det Insp Downey, based in DMR North, raised his grave concerns at the AGSI conference today.
He said: "DPSU in DMR North are not investigating domestic abuse cases.
"They are not responding to domestic abuse cases, because at the moment they have 300 plus sexual offence investigations on their books which are getting priority.
"And I wish people would know that, that DPSUs are not delivering that service because we don’t have capacity.
“Because before the DPSU was set up we had child protection units and they were all the sexual investigations in relation to children.
"When DPSU was set up, all of those cases went to DPSU. So they simply do not have the capacity to investigate domestic abuse or respond to domestic abuse.
"They’re investigating all the child sexual abuse cases, all of the rape cases, and the only domestic abuse cases they’ll take is a case maybe involving a rape within the domestic arena.
"But then that becomes a rape investigation.
“All of the crimes in relation to domestic abuse, coercive control, an awful lot of rapes, historical rapes, are now being sent back from DPSU to the detective units."
Meanwhile, the AGSI has hit out at garda management for not consulting them over the beard policy in the force.
Last July Commissioner Commissioner Drew Harris made a decision to let cops to sport facial hair other than moustaches.
It allows for beards that are neatly trimmed and should be between 0.5cm and 2cm in bulk.
But management in different areas have cracked down on hairy-faced cops recently, with frontline officers in Dublin told to "smarten up".
General secretary Antoinette Cunningham stressed they were not against beards but insisted that the AGSI should have been consulted over the policy.
She said: "We weren't allowed to have an input into their policy.
"And the policy was introduced without consultation with the staff associations.
"I think the introduction of a policy without seeking the viewpoint of the staff associations is not a very wise thing to do. That doesn't mean that we're against the wearing of beards, but we would have liked the opportunity to have a discussion on it at the very least."
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