Only five new gardaí in city an ‘outrage’

THE deployment to Limerick of just five of the 254 new gardaí who graduated from Templemore last Friday was yesterday condemned as an outrage.

Towns such as Cavan (six new gardaí), Balieboro (seven), Buncrana (six) and Letterkenny (nine) did better than the entire Limerick Garda Division.

Not a single new garda was deployed to Co Limerick.

With five allocated to Limerick city, three were posted to Henry Street with one each to Mayorstone and Roxboro Road.

Cllr Jim Long, a member of the city’s joint policing committee, described the situation as an outrage.

He said: “We had the Minister for Justice MrMcDowell boasting in Templemore last Friday that these 254 gardaí were the first of the extra numbers he had approved to build the force to 15,000. Now we find that just 2% of the entire number have been sent to stations in Limerick city. And not a single new garda was sent to a station in the county. What’s going on here?”

Mr Long said that, in comparison to the handful of new gardaí sent to Limerick stations, Dublin was getting almost 100 recruits.

The former Dublin city manager, John Fitzgerald is currently finalising a report for the Government on how issues such as anti-social behaviour in Moyross and Southill should be tackled.

Mr Long said: “I want Mr Fitzgerald to include Ballinacurra Weston in his brief as there are major problems emanating from there. But we will get nowhere if we don’t have more gardaí on the streets of the city.”