Cork TD wants new Garda boss to reinstate city's garda units

The new Garda Commissioner should reverse the decision to merge policing areas in Cork city, a TD has said.

In April, Garda management in the Cork City Division amalgamated Carrigaline and Douglas into one unit, and the units covering Bishopstown and Ballincollig into another.

The garda sub-stations at Douglas, Carrigaline, Bishopstown, and Ballincollig are now run from Togher Garda Station — which is the Cork City South community engagement headquarters.

Ahead of those mergers, Superintendent Finbarr O’Sullivan — who is in charge of Togher Garda Station — said gardaí were attempting to manage available resources the best way they possibly could.

He explained how gardaí would be assigned to incidents by central command, and would respond from all over the city as required.

At the time, the Garda Representative Association (GRA), which represents rank-and-file gardaí, said that while it regretted the decision, it understood its necessity from a health and safety perspective.

The GRA has, for years, been calling for a greater allocation of gardaí to Cork city.

The association believes that a minimum of an extra 100 gardaí are needed.

The amalgamations occurred as part of then Garda Commissioner Drew Harris’s operational policing model (OPM), which has been hotly resisted by the GRA.

LOCAL KNOWLEDGE

The representative body, which has nearly 13,000 members, says the idea that gardaí can interchangeably work across districts has meant a loss of specialised local knowledge, and a sense of insecurity in local areas.

Mr Harris’s former deputy commissioner, Justin Kelly, this week assumed the top Garda job.

Sinn Féin TD for Cork South Central Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire has now called on Mr Kelly to reverse the Cork mergers. His comments come after the allocation, two weeks ago, of an additional 20 gardaí to the city, following their graduation last month from the Garda Training College in Templemore.

“For many years, I’ve been arguing the case and comparing the difference in Garda numbers between Dublin and Cork, and highlighting that Cork has been badly served for a very long time,” Mr Ó Laoghaire said.

“With this last cohort of Garda graduates, thanks to pressure from the people of Cork, but also public representatives, we finally see a bit of a shift, and that has to be part of a pattern, and it also has to manifest itself on the ground.

“One of the first things that needs to happen is this amalgamation of units … we need clear communication that that is going to be brought to an end.”

Mr Ó Laoghaire said there had been anecdotal evidence of incidents where a lack of local knowledge had impeded gardaí in their duties.

“We need local gardaí in place in local units,” he said. “We need this amalgamation to end, and we need a proper Garda presence in all those areas, not only tackling crime, but preventing crime.

“We need to see a repeat of Cork receiving a decent number of gardaí, and I certainly will be raising that with the new Garda Commissioner at the earliest opportunity.”