West Cork residents protest over Garda station closures
The West Cork Rural Garda Station Retention Campaign is calling for the stations in the area not to be closed, saying they were vital for rural communities.
“There are people here from Ballydehob, Goleen, Kilbrittain, right across West Cork, which has a coastline of roughly 520km and we have only a handful of garda stations presently,” said campaign chairman Con McCarthy.
He said the national review being completed at the moment by Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan on the orders of Justice Minister Alan Shatter posed a threat to rural garda stations.
“They’re talking about reducing or closing some of them or forming a different type of policing system, where possibly the gardaí will be withdrawn from the local barracks and taken into the towns,” he said.
Mr McCarthy said the fear with this is that it would break the link between rural communities and the force.
“At the moment, the rural garda does a lot of work from crime prevention to crime detection,” said Mr McCarthy. “He works with the community. We feel if you remove the guard from rural Ireland and take him into the town that that close working relationship that you have between the communities and the garda will actually be weakened.”
Mr McCarthy said the rural garda supports voluntary crime prevention initiatives such as community alert and worked across the spectrum, from schools to senior citizens.
“The rural garda helps to create a positive attitude towards police which in turn discourages anti-social behaviour and lawlessness in the community,” he said.
He said reports in England had claimed that rural crime there had increased by 60% after over 550 rural police stations were closed in 13 counties.
Mr McCarthy said the closure of stations made no financial sense and said that according to some estimates it cost between €2,000 and €4,000 to run rural stations, excluding salaries.
The group later marched the short distance to the Department of Justice on St Stephen’s Green where they handed in a letter for Mr Shatter.
Fianna Fáil TD for Co Limerick Niall Collins said the issue was one right across rural Ireland, including his own constituency. He said a meeting was due to be held on Friday in Doon to campaign on the issue.
