New Garda app will help public keep tabs on valuable items 

Justice Minister Helen McEntee has acknowledged that while burglaries across the country have gone down, this can be attributed to Covid related public safety measures. This app is aimed to make proving burglaries and the retrieval of items easier for Gardaí. Picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins

An Garda Síochána have launched a new mobile app designed to help the public keep a proper record of their valuable items and report any thefts to the authorities.

The property-recording app allows the public to index and record personal property such as bikes, laptops, or farm machinery, and report stolen items to the gardaí online.

The app was launched at the first day of the National Ploughing Championships in Ratheniska, Co Laois, where more than 90,000 people attended.

An Garda Síochána said it has been encouraging the public for years to clearly mark their property, and make a record of it to ensure it is identifiable. 

Gardaí said property that is obviously marked is less attractive to a thief as it is more difficult to sell on ,and the app will encourage this safe behaviour by allowing users to take photographs, record receipts, store registration codes, and photograph the property markings. Gardaí said in a statement:

The benefit of having all of the records on their App is that an investigating Garda will have access to better and more detailed information on the stolen property, such as serial numbers, receipts, images of the stolen items, all of which will assist with the investigation.

“If stolen property is recovered by An Garda Síochána, it is more easily returned to its rightful owner — provided a record is kept of identifiable information.” 

Figures released by the Central Statistics Office, for the last three months of 2021, show burglary and related offences continue to drop in Ireland, with a fall of 21.1% throughout the year. 

Burglaries have fallen, in part, due to Operation Thor, an initiative designed specifically to tackle burglary.

Overall, burglary has fallen by more than 67% since 2015.

“As welcome as this decrease is, we have to remember that the statistics for 2021 cover a period when there were public health restrictions in place and people were necessarily at home more,” Minister for Justice Helen McEntee said earlier this year. 

The crime of burglary is, by its very nature, invasive and it preys on the confidence and safety of us all in the very place where we should all feel safe, our own homes.

An Garda Síochána said it will not store any user data and information on its new app, and any data will be stored on a device or a cloud account depending on the user’s preference.

The app can be downloaded for free on Google Play Store, the Apple Store or directly from the Garda website.