Top garda would like to ‘flood’ city streets with officers

AN Assistant Garda Commissioner said he would be delighted to deploy more gardaí on the beat in Cork city, and could do so if changes in the legal system meant his subordinates didn’t have to spend so much time in the courts or on prisoner escorts.

Assistant Commissioner Adrian Culligan told a meeting of businessmen in the city yesterday that he was also concerned about the private security industry being unregulated, especially as in some instances it was being infiltrated by subversives.

In response to a claim by businesswoman Róisín de Leastar that she wouldn’t walk Cork’s streets at night, but would do so in Paris, the garda said Cork was by far a safer city than most in western Europe.