Text alert scheme relying on donations

The community protection scheme that helped track a suspected child abductor last week is still relying on local people to fund it out of their own pockets.

The Community Text Alert Scheme has been adopted by more than 500 rural communities since the initiative was launched 18 months ago and it has sent over a million texts to 100,000 individual subscribers in that time.

Senior gardaí have credited the scheme with helping reduce crime, in particular the thefts that can plague homes and farms in isolated areas.