‘More Garda reserves needed’

One of the country’s most senior gardaí believes more Garda reserves should be recruited to aid the fight against rural crime.

Assistant commissioner John O’Mahoney, who is in charge of An Garda Síochána ‘s crime and security section, made his comment yesterday after he heard members of the public say how they fear the escalation in rural burglaries.

Mr O’Mahoney said the Garda Reserve should be expanded in addition to the increasing number of regular gardaí who are expected to be trained at Templemore, Co Tipperary in the coming years.

He was speaking at a meeting of the County Cork Joint Policing Committee.

John O’Mahoney

Committee chairman Frank O’Flynn said he was very concerned about yesterday’s Irish Examiner disclosure that garda strength in the city and county was 115 lower than five years ago.

The assistant commissioner said regular garda numbers would increase post-recession to help with the fight against rising crime — burglaries in the city and county during the last three months were up by 14% on the same period last year.

Chief superintendent Ger Dillane said there had been 363 burglaries reported in the third quarter of this year. Mallow garda district, which covers a sizeable part of north Cork, had been particularly badly hit with 53 burglaries during that time, compared to 17 in the comparable period in 2014.

Billy Cotter, a spokesman for North Cork IFA, said crime gangs were casing farms around Charleville by pretending they were hunting for hares.

He said that, when challenged, they would refuse to leave properties and “are very intimidating”.

Another IFA representative, Jimmy Hosford, said rural people no longer knew their local garda following station closures and as a result didn’t know whom to pass vital information.

“A lot of people in rural Ireland feel very isolated and local intelligence isn’t going to the gardaí,” said Mr Hosford. “There are an awful lot of people living in isolated areas who are in a lot of fear.”

Mr O’Mahoney said a garda had been appointed in every district to take responsibility for specific communities and should be out and about talking to them.

He said if this was not happening he wanted to know about it.

Gardaí said a number of people will come before the courts about farm machinery thefts in north Cork and chief superintendent Michael Finn said an operation last weekend in Cork City resulted in a number of arrests of a gang suspected of numerous thefts in the city.