Detectives from some Dublin garda stations are now declining to take calls when they are not working because there has been such a cutback on overtime. The Sunday Tribune has spoken to a number of senior gardaí who say there is an informal agreement in place in stations throughout the capital that detectives do not ring other detectives with queries outside working hours.

The row stems from the fact that there has been effectively no overtime available in Dublin for the last two months because of budgetary cutbacks.

The cuts have taken place because the anti-crime Operation Anvil initiative ran so far over budget last year that spending is now being reined in.

Garda management has been telling the media that Operation Anvil is still very much ongoing and that patrols under it take place nightly. But rank-and-file gardaí say the reality is that plainclothes armed gardaí no longer carry out patrols and uniformed officers have taken over as part of their normal working day.

There is deep unhappiness amongst detective officers about the figures released last week claiming that there have been nearly 14,000 Anvil arrests in Dublin alone since May 2005, along with over 94,000 checkpoints. Sources say that almost all arrests in the city are now being included in Anvil figures, even though the majority of suspects have not been detained by gardaí working as part of that operation.

Gardaí say that the figures are being massaged for political purposes and say there have been incidents where the interviewing of serious criminals has had to be suspended because a garda's shift has ended and management have refused to sanction overtime.

Detectives were routinely making nearly €500 per week after tax with overtime but this has been cut to practically nothing in recent months.

As a result if gardaí have queries about suspects in custody they are no longer contacting their colleagues who are off duty because of the cutbacks. Equally, gardaí who routinely give victims of crime their private mobile phone numbers are declining to hold conversations outside working hours.

Gardaí are constitutionally barred from striking and detectives are powerless to take any action over the overtime ban.

One detective from a south Dublin station said: "We are really feeling the pinch now and it has got to the stage that we cannot carry out searches if we receive intelligence about stolen goods.

"The frustration among gardaí is massive. Operation Anvil went over budget by tens of thousands of hours last year for political reasons and it is non-existent now but the media are being fed figures that are clearly inaccurate and massaged."