‘Cork is a safe place’: Crime statistics compare favourably to other cities, says Chief Superintendent

Cork city centre is a safe place and is open for business, the head of policing in the city has said.

Chief Superintendent Tom Myers, who is in charge of the Cork City garda division, told The Echo that more needed to be done to address the impression that the city centre was unsafe.

“There is a perception in the city, by some, that the streets of Cork city are not safe, but our crime stats and anecdotal information would tell us differently,” he said.

“However, the perception is something that we need to tackle collectively.”

Last year, then lord mayor, Fine Gael councillor Deirdre Forde, said she felt unsafe in some parts of the city at night.

Chief Superintendent Myers said he wanted to reassure people that they could come into the city centre without being intimidated.

“With that in mind, we have our community policing unit focused a lot in the city centre, we have our city centre policing unit, and we’ve put extra resources into the city centre, focusing on high visibility, and reassuring the community that Cork city is a safe place.”

Chief Supt Myers conceded that resources would always be an issue.

“We got seven new guards to Cork there the week before last,” said Chief Supt Myers.

“I could do with a lot more, but it’s my job to manage the resources we have.”

Last year, gardaí in the Cork City division dealt with 88,183 incidents, the Chief Superintendent said, and so far this year they have dealt with 49,007.

“Lots of those are very minor, trivial matters, but somewhere in those are sexual offences, assaults, assaults causing harm, mental health cases, suicides, serious injuries, traffic accidents, drink-drivers, drug-drivers, domestic violence,” he said.

He said that Cork’s crime statistics compared favourably to other cities, adding: “At the moment our crime figures are up 26%, but as regards serious crime, we’re doing exceptionally well.

“We haven’t had a murder in Cork so far this year. Last year we had six murders in the division. Armed robberies are almost non-existent.

“The crime drivers are thefts, burglaries, robberies.”

Last year saw 494 arrests for public order offences, which was up 8%, and 476 arrests for drunkenness offences, up 3%.

Crimes against the person were down 7%, while sexual offences were down 11%. Fraud and economic crime were down 19%.

However, thefts from shops were up 27% in the division, and up 23% in the city centre alone, while burglaries were up 4%.

After a summer of concerts and matches, Mr Myers said that, from a policing perspective, “things couldn’t have gone smoother”.

“It’s the aftermath, really, of events that cause us trouble, people going over town drinking and acting the maggot, antisocial behaviour, but we’re well used to that,” said Chief Supt Myers.

Policing is not solely a garda matter, he said, and An Garda Síochána work “on a daily basis” with numerous stakeholders across the city, “because we know we can’t do it on our own”.

Chief Supt Myers said he still loves his native city: “There’s a good vibe around town, there’s a lot of tourists in the city, you can see them pulling their trolleys and their bags around Patrick St and Oliver Plunkett St and MacCurtain St. It’s a fabulous place. If you go over town of an evening, it’s a lovely place.”