The most senior garda position at the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement (ODCE) has been vacant for over a year, despite repeated attempts by the office to secure a replacement urgently.
The vacancy was first revealed in correspondence from the ODCE released under FOI to RTÉ's This Week programme in May.
The State's corporate enforcement watchdog said it was "severely hampered" in carrying out white collar investigations as a result of having less than its required statutory complement of gardaí.
RTÉ's This Week understands that the position remains unfilled.
Letters from the ODCE to then Garda Commissioner Nóirín O'Sullivan and the head of the Garda Economic Crime Bureau (ECB) showed that the most senior garda position within the ODCE's Garda Unit, a Detective Inspector role, had been vacant since September 2016.
The detective inspector vacancy left the ODCE without a person to "lead, direct and supervise the specialist work of the ODCE's Garda Unit", according to the letters.
Speaking on RTÉ's This Week, Labour leader Brendan Howlin said: "It’s just shocking. It just shows that An Garda Síochána regard this as a routine appointment of a Detective Inspector to be filled like any other, despite the fact that there are is ring-fenced group of guards to be seconded by law to the ODCE".
Mr Howlin also said the approach to the vacancy had implications for the new white collar crime agency which was announced by the Government during the week.
"You can't have confidence that a new agency will be resourced, that a new agency will have real teeth if the reviews and measures determined already for the current agency are not being provided for. You would despair of it being resourced properly," he said.
In another letter to the head of the Garda ECB in September 2016, ODCE Director Ian Drennan described the vacancy as "a very serious development", at a time when the ODCE was facing into "a lengthy and complex trial," which he said would absorb a significant proportion of garda resources, which was running in parallel with a number of other serious investigations.
The letter was also sent to the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation.
According to the FOI documents, the vacancy arose when a detective inspector serving with the ODCE gave three working days notice of retirement last September, causing the director to raise serious concerns about the impact of the retirement on his office.
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In a letter to Detective Superintendent Patrick Lordan, head of the Garda ECB, Mr Drennan called for the vacancy to be filled urgently.
He said: "As you are aware, we are to face into a lengthy and complex trial which will absorb a significant proportion of our garda resources. In parallel, we have a significant number of other criminal investigations ongoing at this time.
"As such, a vacancy at Detective Inspector level, particularly arising at such short notice, is a very serious development from the ODCE's perspective … it is imperative that this post be filled without delay."
The letter was also cc-ed to the Secretary General of the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation.
Mr Drennan was told by Det Supt Lordan by reply in October 2016 that his request to immediately replace the detective inspector would be forwarded to the office of the Garda Commissioner.
In November 2016, Det Supt Lordan again wrote to the ODCE to inform the director that the vacancy would be advertised in 2017 as part of a wider promotion process within An Garda Síochána.
He said: "I can confirm that this vacancy will be included in a competition to fill vacancies arising from Detective Inspectors, Crime Ordinary/Special and Special Crime Operations, valid to 31 December 2017 and this competition will be advertised during Quarter 1, 2017".
The timeline outlined by Det Supt Lordan raised "serious concern" within the ODCE.
In a reply in November 2016, Mr Drennan again wrote to Det Supt Lordan reiterating his point about his office's involvement in a complex trial and warning of "significant reputational risks for both the ODCE and An Garda Siochána" due to the ODCE's Garda Unit being under-strength.
He also pointed out that the ODCE's required complement of detective gardaí was inadequate at a time of Anglo Irish Bank-related court actions.
Mr Drennan asked that the timeline for the replacement "which... could conceivably be next summer or even beyond" be "reconsidered as a matter of urgency".
Last January, Mr Drennan also wrote directly to Commissioner O'Sullivan on two separate occasions.
Firstly, on 9 January, he told the commissioner that, following a meeting with Det Sup Lordan, he had been advised that the Garda ECB was not in a position to provide him with a suitable replacement on secondment, and that he should escalate the matter to commissioner-level.
The director drew the commissioner's attention to the Government directive on garda staffing levels in his office.
"With the recent retirement of the Detective Inspector that had previously been assigned to the Office, the garda complement currently assigned to the ODCE … has fallen to a level which requires to be addressed urgently".
Mr Drennan told the commissioner "The ODCE currently has a number of serious, and large scale, white collar investigations open but, in the absence of a full complement of garda resources, is severely hampered in its ability to progress these investigations."
No reply to the 9 January letter is recorded in the ODCE files released in the FOI.
On 25 January the ODCE Director wrote again to Commissioner O'Sullivan to inform her of a further imminent garda retirements in the office.
Mr Drennan also referred to the concerns he raised in the 9 January letter in which he set out "the extent to which the ODCE's complement of garda staff has fallen below the level as provided for by Government and the associated implications for the ODCE's capacity to discharge its mandate".
He also attached a copy of a 1999 Government directive on ODCE Garda staffing numbers to emphasise his point.
