Divided opinions on station night closure

A NORTH Clare councillor is calling on the Minister for Justice “to abandon the policy of reducing garda numbers” and begin recruitment of new gardaí. Councillor Richard Nagle went on to say “there is widespread concern at the closure of rural garda stations” and that some crimes are not being reported due to a perception that nothing can be done about them.

It was announced recently that Ennistymon Garda Station is to close at night, while local garda stations in Lahinch and Inagh are due to close next Thursday.

“We are rapidly reaching the stage where we will have two police stations in West and North Clare. That will mean we will have just two stations between Loop Head and the Galway border,” Councillor Nagle commented.

“I would be calling on the Minister for Justice to abandon the policy of reducing garda numbers and indeed to start the process of recruitment to take account of the fact the numbers are going to reduce anyway through retirements and we will be left with the case where we have no provision. If recruitment started tomorrow, it would still take two years for those gardaí to come on stream. With retirements and no recruitment, it is inevitable that the size of the force will be reduced further,” the Fianna Fáil councillor added.

Fine Gael Senator Martin Conway, however, believes effective policing is not reliant on keeping garda stations open at night.

“What I would say is that the Garda Plan is done every year by the Garda Commissioner on the advice of the senior management team, including the superintendents in the Clare division. The advice that appears to be coming is that very few people, if any, go into the garda station at night and to keep a garda station open 24 hours a day requires that at least one garda be present in the station all the times.

“Personally speaking, I would prefer to see on-duty gardaí out and about in their patrol cars at night and being in a position to respond to crime, as opposed to being tied up in garda stations,” he said.

“For too long we have been hearing criticism that gardaí are tied up at bases in garda stations and not out and about and I believe that garda resources are far better used insuring that the personnel on duty are more mobile, particularly at night and at weekends,” the Ennistymon senator continued.

However, Councillor Nagle believes the shutting down of smaller garda stations, like Inagh and Lahinch, will diminish traditional links between gardaí and members of the communities they police.

“While it has been stated that there will be increased checkpoints and patrols, the strength of the gardaí has always been their links with the local community and the local knowledge that they had and were particularly able to use in times when a crime was committed. That personal line of communication will now be gone,” he said.

“There is a huge percentage of elderly people living alone in rural areas and people feel with resources being very scarce that those resources are more likely to be concentrated in urban centres and larger centres of population and that the rural areas will be left with basically whatever is available, after the urban areas have been taken care of,” Councillor Nagle stated.

“The point is that with rural garda stations closing, it is grand to say you will have check points here and there but it only achieves so much. They primarily deal with drink driving or road traffic offences and so on but people in the business of theft and burglary, they are adept at getting through those situations and if something happens or is planned, the gardaí don’t have the local knowledge.

“The amount of home heating oil and farm diesel that is being taken at the moment is unreal and a lot of the incidents where this is happening, people are not reporting it because they don’t see the point,” the Ennistymon councillor stated.

“With the proposed reduction in the force down to 12,000 gardaí, the level of concern is even greater because you can only reduce resources so much and people do not believe that the continued reduction of garda numbers is going to make it possible to continue the level of service and security they enjoyed in the past,” he concluded.