Council to call on Garda chief to allocate more recruits to Cork divisions

Cork County Council is to write to Garda Commissioner Drew Harris calling for more recruits to be allocated to Cork city and county from future graduations at the Templemore training college. 

It comes as concern was expressed over the county’s increasing vulnerability to crime at yesterday’s meeting of the local authority.

The motion raised by Seamus McGrath, the Fianna Fáil leader on the council, follows recent disclosures that there has been a reduction of 113 in the number of gardaí in the county’s three divisions at the end of this Government’s term compared to when the Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael/Green Party coalition took office in 2020.

“We do not have sufficient numbers in the Cork city and county area,” said Mr McGrath, councillor for Carrigaline Municipal District. 

“This is both a city and a county issue. Many of our constituents socialise, work, and own businesses in the city centre, so our discussion with him would involve both city centre and county issues regarding safety and other concerns.

“Many of our county areas are desperately underserved with garda numbers. In many of our suburbs, our county towns, our villages, there are simply not enough gardaí to serve our areas. They’re not working among the communities because they are responding to calls and, essentially, firefighting all the time.

“They’re not able to carry out the kind of community policing that they want to be able to do, because they’re stretched too far.”

Respect

Mr McGrath said that only 10 new gardaí from the most recent graduating class had been assigned to the entire southern region.

Cobh Independent Ireland councillor Ger Curley said problems such as antisocial behaviour are coming to the fore. 

“It seems to me that the younger people don’t respect the guards. They can’t be respected because they’re not there.”

Carrigaline-based Fine Gael councillor Jack White said his concern was around the impact the lack of garda numbers was having on the functioning of communities. He said that Garda management often told them that their area did not have the crime statistics to justify greater garda numbers.

“They have that approach backwards, the presence of gardaí enhances community confidence in the policing service locally and will foster the relationship as young boys and girls grow up and get to know them,” said Mr White.

Bantry-based councillor Danny Collins said a number of small rural Garda stations in West Cork had either closed or had their numbers cut, and this was having an impact.