Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is simple fact that for as long as I was in government, there was a car available in the area. Under the Minister's tenure what is happening in my area is happening all over the country. A real-life example which the Minister cannot refute brings home at a human level what this means. The Minister has bought into a master plan but it will destroy the extraordinary bond that has existed between rural communities and their local garda over generations. Policing is about intelligence work. It is not about patrol cars whizzing around with gardaí in them. Rather it is about the garda living within the community who has the trust of the community, who is known to the community and the garda knowing about potential trouble within the community before it ever happens. Somebody somewhere within the system, either in the Civil Service, in the high echelons of An Garda Síochána or in the Minister's office, has got a great new policing plan which envisages a district policing headquarters with everyone radiating out from it in police cars. I do not care from what manual in what country they got that plan. It will not deliver the safe communities that we have been used to. Thankfully, where I live there has been very little crime in the various places where there is a resident garda. I suggest the Minister look at Letterfrack if he wants to see the difference between having a resident garda and a non-resident garda. There were difficulties with young people at Letterfrack which has a third-level college. The Garda station was renovated and a resident garda was put in place. He spoke to the young people. They understood him and he understood them. According to the headmaster of the college, once the principal spoke at a public meeting attended by 150 people, the problems disappeared. I say to the Minister to go back to where it works, leave it the way it was and do not destroy something that has served this country well.

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