Gardaí opposed Covid ‘tout line’ in Donegal

GARDAÍ warned against setting up a ‘tout line’ in Donegal after the idea was proposed by civil servants, the Irish Mail on Sunday has learned.

A Donegal TD accused gardaí this week of introducing a ‘tout line’ for the public to inform on neighbours who breach Covid-19 restrictions in Co. Donegal.

Independent Thomas Pringle made the accusation in the Dáil after gardaí in the county set up a special hotline.

But the MoS has learned gardaí warned against setting up the number, knowing it would be inundated with ‘prank’ calls.

‘There’s a lot of pressure on the gardaí from public health to ensure that the operational policing plan is effective. But this hotline is ridiculous. It was all civil servants, it was their idea. Gardaí warned against it,’ a source said.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin said this week he had no knowledge ‘of the tout hotline’, but said ‘we should support the Garda’. He said people would be taken aback by what gardaí say ‘about the sophistication of quite a number of shebeens’ in the county.

The confidential phoneline was set up after figures showed Donegal has the country’s highest incidence of Covid-19, at 293.4 per 100,000 population, compared to 127.3 nationally.

CMO Tony Holohan said this week ‘the dogs in the street’ knew what was happening in Donegal.

Mr Pringle welcomed the opening of a testing centre in Milford Mart on Wednesday, but was disappointed it would only be for three days and while more facilities are to be announced, ‘we don’t know where they will be or how long they’ll open for’.