Bloodbath warning over use of shotguns

Farmers have been advised not to rush into taking out shotguns to tackle intruders, as armed confrontation runs the risk of a “bloodbath”.

The warning came from the Muintir na Tíre community alert development officer for the southern region, who suggested that other measures are needed to combat the increasing level of rural crime.

Diarmuid Cronin, who had been a farmer, said he was concerned gangs would arm themselves in response to landowners getting more aggressive in defence of their property, and this could have serious implications such as the ratcheting up of violence.

He said such actions could lead to a proliferation of firearms and bloodbaths such as those witnessed regularly in the USA.

“The increased use of firearms is dangerous, it’s a knee jerk reaction,” he said.

He suggested the best action in tackling rural crime was in providing increased resources to the prison and probation services, reducing the ease at which criminals secured legal aid and bringing other deterrents into play.

“The problem is, once a guy goes into the system, the bail laws are too lax and free legal aid too easily available. The probation service is overloaded and not capable of catering for the volume of individuals it has to deal with. Therefore dangerous career criminals are being released.”

He said electronic tagging of serial criminals should be considered and it should be tendered out to private companies to ensure the best technology and value for money.

Mr Cronin said the Government should also clamp down on the repeated use of legal aid.

“It should be provided as a loan to an individual to be deducted, at say, €5 a week from income or benefits. Hitting these people in the pocket would be a deterrent. I don’t see why society should repeatedly pay criminals a living wage.

“When the closure of rural garda stations happened, it was a perfect storm as the garda fleet was seen to be decrepit. Gardaí weren’t around on rural roads.”

Under regulations, a Garda vehicle is removed from service when its odometer reading hits 300,000km. An ageing fleet with no investment during the recession forced senior gardaí to juggle cars around, often swapping vehicles in rural areas with high mileage with those operating in urban areas with lower mileage.

“There’s still a shortage of Garda manpower, but they’re doing a remarkably good job. Even if we had another 5,000 gardaí it wouldn’t solve the problem. They are bringing some people before the courts over and over again but they are back on the streets too quickly.”

He said the change from the four-shift to five-shift system for gardaí had also resulted in much fewer gardaí being on the streets at some times of the day.

Mr Cronin also suggested prison sentences need to be increased for hardened re-offenders. Community service orders were totally under-utilised as there was not the manpower to oversee their implementation.