PLOUGHING ON AGAAIN..
81,500 through gates as festival gets back on track... and Flanagan defends rural cutbacks
CHARLIE Flanagan yesterday defended the closure of rural Garda stations and post offices and made the bizarre claim cash for small cop shops would be better spent on “mobile policing”.
In comments set to spark a backlash from rural Ireland lobby groups, the Laois TD said: “I’m not so sure if a successful or an appropriate narrative for rural Ireland should be the existence of a post office or a Garda station.
“I think there is much more to rural Ireland.
“Nobody has ever said to me they are leaving an area because the post office is not open, nobody has ever said to me they are leaving an area because the Garda station is now six miles away.” He made his comments during a panel discussion at the National Ploughing Championships in Screggan, Co Offaly, which yesterday bounced back from Storm Ali.
Organisers were forced to close the gates as tents and stands were wrecked on Wednesday.
Around 81,500 packed into day two of the festival and it was business as usual for the hundreds of exhibitors after a huge clean-up operation.
Today is the final day and is set to be attended by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.
Mr Flanagan said during the panel chat: “We need to modernise the narrative, which is much more than the death knell of rural Ireland with the demise of rural communities now that the post mistress, having served for 50, 60 years is now retiring.
“I think we’ve got to acknowledge the changes and from a Garda perspective, I’m really impressed at the recent report of the Commission on the Future of Policing, which is really strong on equipping gardai with the tools they need in order to combat modern crime and mobile crime.
“That’s what I intend doing over the next couple of years, ensuring there is proper investment and I have legislative responses to the ever-changing methods and modes of operation for criminal gangs.
“Not only within Ireland but abroad – money laundering, overseas criminals coming, the threat of international terrorism, something that
matters to us all. We in rural Ireland are not immune to all of that and we need to be equipped with the appropriate resources, but it’s got to be much more than saying, ‘Ah we may close down now because the postmistress is retiring’.
“We’re not like that anymore. We need to respond and ensure our communities are modern and well-equipped.”
When probed on his remarks after the public discussion wrapped up, the Justice Minister snubbed questions about whether his personal views contradicted the findings of the Future of Policing Report, which recommended keeping rural stations open. He told the Irish Mirror: “I’m down here at the ploughing in my own constituency seeing what is a great festival of rural Ireland.
“What we see here is everything positive about rural Ireland, that is seeing more people live here now than 20 years ago.
“They raise a lot of negativity about rural Ireland and rural Ireland means a lot more than just the demise of a post office in a small rural village.
“We need to be more positive about rural Ireland.”
Fianna Fail TD for Clare constituency Timmy Dooley told the Irish Mirror last night the minister’s comments signal a lack of State support for rural villages.
He said: “That was the Alan Shatter model of policing.
“Alan Shatter had the view that ‘smart policing’ was the way to go.
“This meant centralising gardai in larger stations in more urban areas and having them out in cars patrolling rural areas when there was a need.
“But that doesn’t happen, because there is always going to be more policing in the built-up areas, keeping them there.
“Once you go down the road of collectively removing infrastructure like the Garda stations and post offices you begin to dismantle the fabric of rural Ireland.”
This is all that is positive about rural Ireland that is seeing more people live here CHARLIE FLANAGAN CO OFFALY YESTERDAY