Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted that representatives of An Garda Síochána are with us today to discuss a few issues. I come from a rural community on a peninsula in west Cork. I attended a community alert meeting last night as the secretary of the Schull district community alert group. The witnesses mentioned that such voluntary organisations, including Muintir na Tíre, try to deliver as best they can by making aid calls to the elderly and getting people to sign up to text alerts. Those of us involved in such groups are worried about certain issues. The Garda station in Goleen, which is on the peninsula I come from, was the last Garda station in Ireland and it was one of the first to be closed. That was a huge concern for the community at the time. It continues to be a concern because the Garda station remains closed. Is there is a possibility of Garda stations reopening? There has been some talk about some Garda stations being reopened. Where are they? When is that going to happen? How is it going to happen?

Squad cars are taken off the road after they have travelled a certain number of kilometres. Has An Garda Síochána considered not taking them off the road? Some of them are not in shocking condition when they are decommissioned. They have passed the national car test, NCT, so they must be drivable. Could they be signed out to rural Garda stations and rural gardaí who are working in communities that do not have Garda cars? That needs to be looked at. If they pass the NCT and it is legal for them to be on the road, that should be enough and the mileage should not matter. They could be sent out to rural communities so that such communities do not have to do without Garda cars. Many rural gardaí have to travel to main centres to pick up squad cars. It is not workable.

People living in rural areas are totally dependent on the Garda and all communities work very closely with the force. I see a considerable number of gardaí at night, sometimes on their own at dangerous times. I often question whether a garda on his or her own at night would be safe if an incident were to occur. How would he or she attend to an incident involving a gathering of 50 or 100 people in the summer months? It is a matter of great concern that one garda would take on a challenge of that nature.

In my local community of Schull, we recently established a closed circuit television camera, CCTV, system. Many other communities have done likewise. Installing CCTV, including cameras with vehicle registration recognition, costs thousands of euro. A grant scheme should be introduced to provide funding for towns that decide to install CCTV systems. The system should be installed in one go, rather than in different steps as currently happens because of shortfalls in funding.

It is great that a significant number of new gardaí are being recruited. As we heard, more than 300 gardaí retire each year and no gardaí were recruited for a number of years. The effect of this is most visible in rural communities where gardaí who retired or were redeployed to larger urban centres were not replaced. This trend should be reversed now that more gardaí are being recruited.

Deputy Ó Cuív made the important point that gardaí no longer live in the areas to which they are deployed. This is a significant loss for rural communities in which the local garda has always been a pillar of the community who worked with young people and knew what was right and wrong. Many children were pulled aside and put right by the local garda which avoided considerable hassle. The change Deputy Ó Cuív described is a serious loss in rural areas. I have been fighting this trend in my community for many years through local divisional meetings and other meetings attended by community representatives. The issue must be addressed, for example, by giving gardaí who agree to reside in the locality when applying to be assigned to a specific area a better chance of securing the position.

On the looming strike by members of An Garda Síochána, it is incredible that the Garda and State have been drawn into this, in particular, as a result of the scandalous manner in which new gardaí are being treated. I fully support gardaí on this issue because it is terribly unfair. I attend divisional meetings with the chief superintendent throughout west Cork and issues such as the lack of gardaí and the shortage of squad cars often arise. Text alert systems were mentioned. These systems should be strengthened and the Garda should increase the level of engagement and communication with them. At a meeting I attended last night, I pointed out that we do not receive text alerts, which is not good enough when the facility is available. There are obviously incidents taking place and a text alert would keep people on their toes. I ask the witnesses to respond.