Community policing units must be retained, says Cork city councillor

A Fianna Fáil member of Cork City Council has called on Fine Gael Justice Minister Helen McEntee to meet the Garda Commissioner Drew Harris to ensure that garda community policing units are retained as a priority.

Cllr Tony Fitzgerald told The Echo that under a new garda roster system it is proposed to place all community gardaí in routine rosters, meaning, he said, that those gardaí would be working during the night and not available for community policing.

“We have learnt over many years through many preventative measures that community engagement is the best model of community policing,” Mr Fitzgerald said.

“We see very positive partnerships with local authorities, HSE, Schools and Youth Clubs particularly through neighbourhood watch and juvenile liaison schemes.

“As a former chair of the Cork City Joint Policing Committee (JPC) and as a community activist for many years, this proposal, if true, will seriously weaken the operation of the JPCs. Any partnership withdrawal from crime prevention is a major step back in community confidence in tackling crime,” he said.

Mr Fitzgerald added that he understood that Justice Minister McEntee was due to visit Cork this week and, he said, she needed to reassure the public that plans for community policing should be increased rather than decreased.

A spokesperson for An Garda Síochána said they were aware of what they called “a significant amount of disinformation being reported by certain media outlets quoting uninformed anonymous sources”.

They went on to say that no announcement had been in relation to the local implementation of rostering.

“The Westmanstown roster is the only roster that has the collective agreement of all the garda associations and operated between March 2012 and March 2020 before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, which resulted in an emergency roster being introduced to deal with the unique policing requirements of the time,” the spokesperson said.

“The Covid-19 emergency is now well over and the Covid-19 roster is no longer suitable for the delivery of a 24/7 police service … (for) example, policing of the night-time economy that was not a factor during Covid-19.

“There are no plans to move any Garda members formally appointed to specialist units as part of the reintroduction of the agreed Westmanstown roster,” the garda spokesperson concluded.

A spokesperson for the Garda Representative Association (GRA), which represents almost 12,000 rank-and-file gardaí, said: “While we have yet to be informed of any specific changes to the Community Policing Service in the Cork Region, we believe any such proposed reductions would seriously affect our ability to deliver effective policing to the public we serve.

“An Garda Síochána is very proud of its standing in our communities, policing by consent, and we would be opposed to any moves that would result in a further reduction in members on the ground and visibility on the streets,” the GRA spokesperson said.