Beat on street: A morning with Cork city's community gardaí

It’s just gone 9.30am on Wednesday. December 18, exactly a week before Christmas, and community gardaí Peter O’Donoghue and Damien Desmond are standing on the pavement of Oliver Plunkett Street, across from the junction with Pembroke Street.

The gardaí laugh when I joke that they’re like two men guarding a mountain pass or something. They admit that their position does give them clear views up and down Oliver Plunket Street and down Pembroke Street and line of sight of both the main door and the side door of the General Post Office (GPO).

That’s important, they say, because in the week before Christmas, a lot more people than usual use the post office, and it is a double week for welfare payments.

“A lot of people come to the post office to collect a payment, and our being here acts as a deterrent to anyone who might have an idea about targeting them,” says Peter, a Coachford native who has been a garda for almost 19 years, eight of them a community garda.

“You often see dealers escorting poor misfortunates with drug debts to the GPO, so they can take their welfare payments off of them. They might follow them in one door and go out the other, so we try and keep an eye out for that.”

Damien, a Kilbrittain native with more than 18 years on the force, adds that a lot of older people use the post office early in the morning, and they’re always happy to see a guard on duty. As he says that, two older women come up from Pembroke Street and tell the two gardaí they’re delighted to see them. They’re coming from Mass in the Holy Trinity Church and heading up town for a cup of tea. They’re both wearing multiple yellow SHARE stickers, and Peter tells them that the young students from various city schools are already out on the streets, collecting for the charity, which supports the elderly.

“We’re ready for them,” says one of the women, as they bustle off up Winthrop Street. She even has a SHARE sticker on the palm of her glove.

Around 11am, they patrol the city centre, looping around the Grand Parade and down Patrick Street, with several people stopping them along the way for conversations, most of them light-hearted and humourous, but one or two hushed and serious.

Damien says the presence of gardaí on the beat has an obvious deterrent effect against street crime and offers reassurance to people, but it also helps to foster relations between the public and the gardaí.

“If people know you as someone they can talk to, that has the effect that, if they need your help, or if they see something they think is wrong, they know they can approach you,” he says.

Part of his duties are with the community forum in Ballinlough. One of the recent issues he has been dealing with has been a spate of thefts from cars.

“We’ve been advising people to lock their cars, because these are opportunists, they want to get in easy, get in simple and be gone again. We’re asking people not to leave cash, or phones, or laptops or anything like that in cars,” he says.

“Another thing we’re asking people is not to leave car keys inside doorways, because it’s very easy for these lads to get a scope with a magnetic prong at the end of it, put it in a letterbox and fish the keys out.”

Part of Peter’s duties is to serve as the liaison garda for the Mercy University Hospital, helping to run the hospital watch scheme there.

“That’s about engaging with the staff, the community, the patients, the visitors there. We work well with the staff – there’s over 1,500 staff there, so it’s like a community in itself.

“It’s about encouraging people to look out for each other, the people who are in and out there every day are the people who would recognise if something is out of place, something unusual. So it’s about having the right reporting mechanisms within the hospital,” he says.

“The hospital watch scheme is about reducing crime and the fear of crime for those in and around the hospital at all times throughout the year, but we would have a particular focus on the lead-up to Christmas, and the winter time is an especially busy time in hospitals as well.

“Christmas can bring its own problems, with a lot of people out socialising and the hospitals dealing with a lot of drink and drug-related issues, so we work closely with everyone in the hospital to ensure the safety of everyone in the area.”

We meet Sergeant Tim McAuliffe, sergeant-in-charge for community policing in the city centre, at the junction of Opera Lane and Patrick Street, where he has parked the new garda community engagement van (see panel).

There are 10 community gardaí working in the city centre, he says, although there are three times that number working across the city as a whole.

“When people think about community policing, they often imagine us just dealing with residents’ associations, but we also act as liaisons with the hospitals, we also have a liaison up in UCC, which is its own community and has its own challenges.

“In the city centre, a lot of the time our community is the business community, so we engage proactively with the retailers, especially during Christmas, which is the most important time of the year for them, so we do our best to help them and we tie in as well with City Hall.”

With Peter departing for other duties across town, we are joined by community garda Karen Ring, a garda with 18 years under her belt, who works mainly in the Blackrock and Mahon area. Karen is driving a squad car as we head for Cork Penny Dinners, to discuss the delivery of hampers over the Christmas (see panel).

“I love my job, I love the variety of it,” she says.

“I was saying to a colleague recently that people love the idea of being a detective, but I wouldn’t. I love putting on my uniform and people saying ‘Oh, here’s the guards,’ and they come up and talk to you.

“It’s nice to be recognised, and it’s nice to just chat with people, and it’s the variety that I love.”

She says some colleagues tease her as a community garda and ask where she will be drinking tea today, but for her community policing is why she’s in the job.

“Community policing is something that I always wanted to do, and then when it came up I applied for it and got it. I had worked in Blackrock years ago and I’m back here now.

“It’s lovely. It’s not too many people can say they love going into work, but to me, this is what being a guard should be all about.”