Gardaí are “at their wits’ end, demoralised, and at breaking point, and no longer equipped to protect large swathes of rural areas” because of cutbacks.

A woman whose house had been burgled had to collect a garda from a local station because he did not have a patrol car.

THE organisation representing the country’s rank-and-file gardaí has described conditions at a Garda station in Co Cork “as no better than a Third World sweatshop factory”.