Extra €4m for festive season patrols

MORE gardaí are to be put onto the street over the Christmas period, Justice Minister Michael McDowell announced yesterday.

Mr McDowell said he was authorising an extra €4 million on garda overtime, which would pay for an additional 140,000 garda overtime hours.

The extra money will be spent on uniformed and plain clothes policing between now and the end of the year.

The fund will target 10 specific areas, including:

Late-night public disorder.

Road traffic offences.

Burglary prevention

Patrols in residential and commercial areas;

Security for cash in transit vans.

Mr McDowell said the funding had become available through "careful financial management" of the department's budget.

He said an additional €2m was provided by him to An Garda Síochána for the final eight weeks of 2003. "I am delighted to be in a position this year to double the amount of extra funding for garda overtime and I have no doubt that this will be of great benefit to Commissioner Conroy in ensuing a high visibility presence of gardaí in our communities between now and the end of the year."

Following consultation with the commissioner, other priorities include:

High visibility police presence in busy thoroughfares and late-night entertainment areas.

Increased inspection of licensed firearms to ensure adequate security measures.

Patrolling car parks of licensed premises late at night.

Increased community policing patrols, entailing visits to elderly and vulnerable people in remote locations.

The extra money will bring to €62m the amount spent on garda overtime this year an increase of almost €6m on last year, but a drop of €3m on 2002.

A spokesman for the Garda Representative Association said they welcomed any measure that would "reduce the duress of GRA members in fighting crime", but suggested the funds be focused exclusively on public order and violent crime.

A spokesman for the Association of Garda Sergeants & Inspectors said: "While any extra allocation is of course welcomed, it's not going to go very far, considering the force is severely under-strength. It is going to be spread very thinly over a large number of areas."

He also queried whether Operation Freeflow targetting traffic flows would be included. A spokesman for the commissioner said it would.

The spokesman said the commissioner welcomed the additional money.

He said the priority areas had been identified by local policing plans, drawn up by the six regional assistant commissioners.