Garda levels ‘too low for city’ for Cork city

A senior representative of the largest Garda association has said it is completely unacceptable that the Cork Metropolitan region is to get just five recruits — as Garda numbers are already so low there they are only able to “operate fire brigade action”.

Mick Corcoran, a member of the Garda Representative Association’s (GRA) central executive committee, said that he has raised concerns with senior management about the depleted number of gardaí in the city and suburbs, claiming they are operating with nearly 100 fewer than in 2008.

Meanwhile, a civilian member of the Cork county joint policing committee (JPC), Fianna Fáil councillor Daithí Ó Donnabháin, said he has heard at first hand from gardaí in the city and suburbs how worried they are by manpower shortages and he will be raising it as a matter of urgency at the JPC meeting in County Hall next Monday.

Garda Corcoran said that Kerry, which has a much smaller population, is also being assigned five recruits when they leave the Garda College in Templemore shortly.

He said the bulk of the trained-up 100 recruits leaving in this batch will be deployed to the Dublin area.

“And that’s fair enough because that’s where the major population is,” said Mr Corcoran. “But there’s also a large population in Cork and it’s not getting its fair share.”

The GRA recently issued a statement in which it said that the force’s efficiency has been compromised through years of non-recruitment and that the Government needs to step up recruitment in the coming years to avoid an even more serious manpower crisis.

Mr Ó Donnabháin said: “Such a paltry allocation is nothing short of insulting to the people of Cork City and county”.

The councillor, who is son of Judge Sean O’Donnabháin, said he had carried out his own research on garda numbers in the area, which showed they were well down on previous years.

Mr Ó Donnabháin said heroin use was increasing in Cork and more gardaí were needed to combat this, especially as it was in part connected to a 53% increase in robbery from the person recorded last year.

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