Number of gardaí across Cork city and county down by more than 20

The number of gardaí in Cork dropped by 21 from the end of 2025 to midway through this year, across 17 stations.

At the end of December 2025, there were 721 gardaí in Cork city and 621 in Cork county.

As of the end of June, the most recent data available, this had reduced to 708 in Cork city and 613 in Cork county.

In the city, there are seven fewer gardaí in Anglesea St; four fewer in Carrigaline; two fewer in both Mayfield and Watercourse Rd, and one less in Ballincollig, Bishopstown, and Douglas, when compared to the end of last year.

Some stations did see increases, with three more gardaí in Togher, one more in the command and control centre, and one more in Bridewell, amounting to an overall reduction of 13.

New high visibility policing  

The reduction in Anglesea St, Cork city’s main garda station, comes despite 53 gardaí being allocated to the station in November last year, most to introduce a new high visibility policing model in the city centre.

The model has been hailed as a success by city centre businesses, yet communities in the city suburbs have said the heightened garda presence in the city centre has resulted in antisocial behaviour including open drug use being pushed out to their residential areas.

In Cork county, there is three less gardaí in Bantry, Fermoy, and Charleville, two less in Kanturk and Cobh, and one less in Timoleague, Macroom, Millstreet, Buttevant and Mallow.

There is two more gardaí in Bandon and one more in Durrus, Glengarriff, Clonakilty, Drinagh, Mitchelstown, Crookstown, Liscarroll, Youghal, an overall reduction of eight.

There were reductions in eight of Cork’s 11 garda divisions over the last six months, while one remained level and two saw small increases.

While 74 newly qualified gardaí were assigned to Cork stations last year, details on probationer gardaí allocated to Cork so far this year show just three new allocations to Cork city and four to Cork county.

So far this year, 256 newly graduated gardaí have been allocated to Dublin.

Dublin’s eight divisions have seen a cumulative increase of 59 gardaí from December 2025 to June 2026, from 3,938 to 3,997.