Cull saved so little it must be reversed - Closing Garda stations

EVEN though the credibility of crime statistics, long massaged by gardaí to give a false impression of their efficiency, must still come with a health warning, yesterday’s figures showing a significant rise in assaults, burglaries, frauds and murder threats — up by 52% — puts the news that just €4,000 was saved by closing each of 139 Garda stations over recent years in a chilling but surreal, almost vaudeville, light.

Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald confirmed, when she answered a Dáil question posed by Deputy Pádraig Mac Lochlainn, that the closure of 139 stations saved a pathetic sum — a miserable €556,000 per annum. That’s about enough to buy one three-bed house in Dartland Dublin or fund a straightforward and very brief high court drama.

Communities, especially rural communities and the elderly people living alone in them, who have felt betrayed since their local station was closed in a cost-cutting sweep will be astounded that their sense of security, their entitlement to the pro-active protection of the State was denied them for a sum as paltry as €4,000. Their anger at this abandonment — despite occasional long-range garda expeditions from towns in the near distance — would be entirely justified.