Garda station shock for local councillor
GODFREY APPEALS FOR NEW BUILDING AS OFFICERS FORCED TO WORK IN CELLAR
August 1980
A call for a new garda barracks to replace the present antiquated building in which Drogheda gardai are working under “primitive” conditions has been made by Alderman Frank Godfrey.
He visited the station recently in his capacity as a public representative and was taken on a conducted tour. He claims he found lack of adequate space with the 70 garda personnel operating under cramped conditions, the building is in a dangerous state, there’s no proper interview room, no proper heating and two outdated cells.
‘I couldn’t believe what I saw. It was like something from Charles Dickens. It shocked me,’ he stated.
He is writing to the Minister for Justice, Mr. Collins; Minister for State, Mr. Doherty, and the Office of Public Works, demanding a new, bigger and more modern barracks for Drogheda. He wants either a complete new building or for the authorities to acquire a more adequate one in the town.
“I am merely looking for justice for our gardai and for the public who have to go into the barracks to do business there,” said Ald. Godfrey.
When he visited the barracks he said he discovered the 12 members of the traffic corps working in one small room, while the Superintendent’s office only measured 9’ x 9’.
He was astonished to see another garda working behind a typewriter in a basement cellar which he felt “wasn’t fit for human beings to work in.”
A lot of the space throughout the building was taken up with files and cabinets. The only toilets on the ground floor were the one in the cells and the gardai and public often had to use these.
The barracks, he said, was constructed in the last century and was not adequate for today’s standards. The building itself was deteriorating and could be termed dangerous because of the cracks in the walls and ceilings.
Gardai are unable to comment themselves on conditions under which they work, nor would a spokesman for the Department of Justice say anything.