Garda stations vital in rural areas

The closure threats to rural garda stations must alarm everyone in rural Ireland. Law and order in rural areas has now declined to the extent that robberies and attacks are so commonplace they do not even make the newspapers.

The prime targets of this creeping rural terror have been the old, lonely and isolated.

I challenge any sociologist to do a survey of crime rates in Ireland and I am quite certain the murder rate per 1,000 people will be higher in rural than in urban areas.