Cork councillor calls for pop-up city centre Garda station

A CORK city councillor has suggested that one of the city’s vacant coffee pods might be repurposed as a city centre garda station.

Sinn Féin Councillor Mick Nugent made the suggestion at the June quarterly meeting of the Cork City Joint Policing Committee (JPC) in recent days.

Cllr Nugent pointed out that An Garda Síochána had recently opened a new station on O’Connell Street, and suggested there could be benefits to opening a pop-up station in Cork city.

“I often thought that one of the disused coffee pods could have been somewhere the guards could have had a presence during the day,” Cllr Nugent told the JPC meeting.

Speaking to The Echo, Cllr Nugent said he raised the issue of incidents in Cork city centre, and fear around safety in the area with authorities.

The Sinn Féin councillor said he had made his suggestion about repurposing a vacant coffee pod as a garda station to Chief Superintendent Tom Myers, who is in charge of policing in the Cork City Division.

“I proposed the idea of the gardaí utilising unused coffee pods as a base within the city centre, that could be both an information resource for members of the public alongside increasing garda visibility in the city centre,” he said.

“It is vital that people feel safe on our streets and this could be really positive for the city centre. 

"The chief superintendent recognised the merit in the idea and has said he will investigate further,” Cllr Nugent stated.

Cllr Nugent’s proposal to use one of the vacant pods as a garda office was endorsed by Fine Gael Senator Jerry Buttimer, who said many people believed a more visible presence of An Garda Síochána was needed in the city centre.

In Dublin, Operation Citizen and Operation Spire, which specifically target anti-social behaviour and drug dealing on O’Connell Street, are being run out of a new garda station located at 13A Upper O’Connell Street.