Retirements to hit Tralee policing, warns garda

A senior garda has warned of the impact “massive” Garda retirements will have on policing in Tralee.

Superintendent Jim O’Connor told a joint policing committee that seven gardaí, four sergeants and one Garda inspector are leaving the Tralee force and there will be just one superintendent in the whole Kerry division in March.

As Supt O’Connor warned that “difficulties” lay ahead, there were calls for a public meeting to “teach people to look after themselves” in the vacuum left in the town’s police force and to assuage fears among concerned citizens of “a free-for-all”.