GARDA STATIONS FACE NEW WAVE OF CLOSURES
Clinics and social media could replace gardaí on the ground, says major report
THE Government’s report on root and branch Garda reform calls for even more stations to be shut down, the Irish Mail on Sunday can reveal.
The Future of Policing review suggests it would be ‘efficient and effective’ to replace local gardaí with mobile units.
However, the call has outraged rural anti-crime campaigners
who are appalled at claims that the stations could be replaced by regular clinics and social media activity. Locals in Omeath, Co. Louth, where hero garda Tony Golden was stationed before he was gunned down by dissident republican Adrian Crevan Mackin, described the move as ‘spineless’.
The closure of Garda stations has been a controversial topic in recent years, since former justice minister Alan Shatter closed 100 of them, mostly in rural areas, in 2013.
The Future of Policing Commission, chaired by former US police chief Kathleen O’Toole, was set up to deal with controversies including unreliable crime statistics and falsification of breathalyser tests. Its recommendations have been largely welcomed this week, although there have been questions over the lack of costing of the report.
This week Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan welcomed the report, calling it a new blueprint for policing and announcing that an implementation plan would be brought to Government in three months. Last night, however, his department press service were not answering their duty phone.
And one key recommendation will cause more frustration in rural communities already devastated by the loss of post offices.
The key aspect of the report that has flown under the radar until now reads: ‘This issue of police visibility and engagement in the community has been raised with us in meetings with rural representatives and farming organisations, and highlighted in submissions to the Commission, including by Garda members. We recognise that the presence of a police station is often important for community safety and confidence, but we also recognise that many stations are currently staffed by only a single garda, and many are only occupied part time.
‘Where stations are closed, we see no reason why district police should not hold weekly or bi-weekly “clinics” in community centres or other accessible places. The key is that police are visible and engaged with communities, whether or not they have a station nearby. In all districts the police should also use social media and other technology tools to engage with the local community.’
Reacting to the report, a veteran source told the MoS: ‘That’s code for closing stations. To say a Garda station will be replaced with a mobile unit is PR speak. The same was said when Shatter closed stations. That would mean more personnel and vehicles in a district HQ which didn’t happen back then, and won’t happen now.’
Asked to clarify if the Commission were calling for further closures, a spokesman told the MoS it had ‘no further comment to add to what’s in the report’. However, reaction from areas on the front line of the fight against rural crime was scathing. Gearóid O’Sullivan, from the Omeath community alert group, said: ‘If they think shutting small Garda stations and providing a more mobile service is going to work, it’s not.’ Garda Golden was stationed in Omeath when he was shot dead as he helped a woman escape her dangerous, abusive partner. Two years earlier he had written a stark report pointing to a dangerous lack of policing resources in his area. Last year the MoS revealed how the highly respected garda had still not been replaced, two years after he was murdered. Mr O’Sullivan told the MoS: ‘If there is a station, there is a garda every now and again. A garda in a car is not guaranteed to be anywhere. That’s a retrograde step, they’re expanding numbers but they’re not telling us the target number. In terms of shutting these small one-man stations, it’s crazy.
‘Alan Shatter shut plenty already, it is a crazy idea because every station is a central focus for gardaí in a particular area.’ He added: ‘The garda in the station has a car available to him, it’s not like he’s sitting there without a car. It’s crazy, it really is. My dad is from west Cork and he knows the local garda. They’re so stretched down there that to close any more stations and say a guy from Tralee or Killarney is going to show up is idiotic.
‘That report might please an accountant, it might make nice reading for them. But it wouldn’t work. It will reduce rural cover.’
He said the recommendation will leave it open for those in charge to say: ‘It wasn’t my decision, I was just following the report.’
Mr O’Sullivan added: ‘They’re spineless. It’s unrealistic to the point of crazy if they think they can deliver a mobile service as opposed to a fixed-based service.’
Dermot Cronin of community network Muintir na Tíre in Cork said: ‘It seems crazy. Very badly thought out. They’ll be soon expecting fellas to run their offices in the back of a van. I doubt very much that paragraph is backed up by visits on the ground. He warned that some of the stations left open are in a shocking
‘It’s spineless, unrealistic to the point of crazy’
‘Do politicians want the furore of the last time?’
state: ‘Some of the most dilapidated stations in the country, say Macroom station, are a disgrace… there are 18 female gardaí using one cubby hole of a toilet there.’
He warned: ‘There have been enough inches of print over the last number of years and I’m sure a lot of politicians do not want to go down that route again, with the furore they raised when they started closing stations in a knee-jerk reaction.’
He added: ‘I would have thought there would be a higher standard of stuff in that report. What is the point in having a weekly clinic if the Garda station is closed down.’
Joe Parlon of Tipp Community Alert said: ‘If you have a garda there is someone to contact. When you’re relying on the local town you don’t know any of these gardaí. If he is there in the local community, and seen to be there, you know him.