Report labels some roads policing Gardaí as ‘unproductive’ and ‘demotivated’

A new report into roads policing has labelled a cohort of Gardaí as “unproductive”, adding that some “appear to be demotivated and unconcerned with doing an effective, professional job”.

The Crowe Report, published this morning, conducted an independent review of the Roads Policing Unit (RPU) to assess its effectiveness and integrity.

As part of the review, investigators visited six Garda divisions which highlighted a number of issues of concern in relation to roads policing.

While the report noted that the majority of RPU members investigated “are productive, professional, and focused on improving road safety”, it said that there is a minority who “are disinterested in being productive and effective”, and who “are able to get away with such behaviour”.

To date in 2025, 103 people have lost their lives on Irish roads across 98 road traffic collisions, Garda statistics show.

The report also said that there is a “lack of effective sanctions” for poor performance, and supervisors and managers were “typically apprehensive that any attempt to invoke sanctions would create industrial relations problems” with the Garda Representative Association (GRA).

However, the report said no evidence was found relating to “systematic, organised culture of work avoidance or deliberately poor performance within roads policing, and no evidence of bullying or dominance of RPU members by their colleagues”.

It added that the absence of effective supervision and management creates the “circumstances in which such a culture has been able to take root”.

The report concluded by calling on An Garda Síochána to correct the identified problems across all dimensions, rather than conducting further examination into the scale and nature of the problems.