Will all policing be funded by donations?

The generosity of Tom Cavanagh in donating €45,000 towards the purchase of a Garda bus to support community policing in Gurranabraher (Irish Examiner, April 17) is commendable.

But why has community policing been reduced to dependency on donations? Is ‘community policing’ merely a buzzword to bolster the fading image of An Garda Síochána.

Is it not a vital element of the wider policing agenda? What other elements of Garda infrastructure will have to be funded by wealthy philanthropists, or sponsored by commercial concerns, such as cable television providers, burglar-alarm companies, champagne importers, condom suppliers or lingerie designers?

The Garda fleet has been reduced by 200 vehicles since 2009. The maintenance cost of the remaining vehicles, 60% of which are more than four years old, has increased from €10m to €12m annually. Garda recruitment and training has been mothballed for years and we are becoming rapidly dependent on an ageing Garda force.

One hundred Garda stations were closed last year.

Yet, the Department of Foreign Affairs had €21,735,094 to spend in Uganda in 2013, immediately after the fraudulent misappropriation of aid donations in 2012, following collusion at senior levels of the Ugandan Government and across three of its agencies.

This money was spent on ‘finger-in-the-dyke’ initiatives, including a forensic unit in the office of the Auditor General, supposedly to combat fraud and corruption, as well as other unmeasurable and interminable projects, such as gender equality, the support of democracy and human-rights access to justice.

The Irish Aid programme is resourced, by our exploding government debt, to the scale of FÁS in the heyday of the Celtic Tiger, while a weakened policing service at home is reduced to a begging bowl. The Government needs to start listening acutely to the heartbeat of the nation and carefully heeding what they discern.

Myles Duffy

Glenageary

Co Dublin