Lack of adequate policing creates dangerous void in rural Ireland

THE outrage generated by savage attacks on people, especially old people living alone, in rural areas is a hardy annual and the issue has been exacerbated by the closure of so many country Garda stations.

People feel vulnerable and have responded in different ways. Some have decided they need to protect themselves and have equipped themselves to do so by acquiring firearms — as is their absolute right.

All around the country people who feel threatened have armed themselves because they feel they have no alternative and every attack or burglary, or as was the tragic case this week, death, adds to that momentum.

That so many of these attacks seem to emanate from a specific group contributes to that unfortunate momentum as well.

Swathes of rural Ireland do not have adequate policing and this has created a vacuum, one that might be filled by a solution worse than the problem that provokes.

Unless the Garda presence in rural Ireland in increased dramatically the kind of “community workers” that plague parts of this island will use the opportunity the extend their power base.