Text Alert in fight against rural crime
It partners community groups with their local or nearest 24-hour Garda district station, and facilitates immediate and cost-effective communication from An Garda Síochána to the public.
Where a member of the public reports an incident to them, gardaí will verify details and determine if the text alert system should be utilised to inform community contacts, who can in turn tell their community groups to advise the public to watch out and report any developments.
An Garda Síochána will provide information by text or e-mail to each registered community contact, who will in turn forward the information by text or e-mail to all members of their community group.
It is a one-way communications system; contact with the gardaí must be made in person or by a telephone call.
IFA president John Bryan said, “Our network will link up with the expertise of An Garda Síochána in an effort to improve communications and prevent crime through a community-based partnership. This is an important initiative to assist in crime prevention and must be supported by an increased level of Garda patrols in rural areas. From this week, each of our most senior officers at branch and county level will receive relevant texts from An Garda Síochána as part of Community Text Alert.
“This will provide a very important tool in community based crime prevention”.
Muintir na Tíre president John Hogan said their partnership with An Garda Síochána has worked positively in the Community Alert Programme for 28 years.
Pat Walsh from Neighbour Watch said the new initiative connects the work of gardaí with community groups in a real and tangible way.
Each community should determine if it requires a text alert system.
Participating communities can then establish a neighbourhood watch or community alert group or join their local IFA branch.
It is important that the text alert system is backed up by an organised and active community.
Matters to be considered by community groups include selection of a community contact to take overall responsibility for the text alert system; ensuring community group mobile numbers are kept up to date; and financing and advertising the text alert system.
Where information is received by e-mail, the community contact can forward the e-mail, or convert it to SMS text to send to their community group.
A community contact can use a mobile number or a server number; using the latter facilitates an automated forwarding service.
Gardaí have provided examples of the kind of alerts that might be issued:
*There have been reports of a car acting suspiciously in the Clonmel area (with a description of the car)
*Distraction burglaries occurred in the last hour in south Wexford. Silver Ford Mondeo car seen acting suspiciously nearby.
