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

-----but the hallmark of the Government is that even when it is in black and white that it is wrong, it can never admit it in the House.

If the Minister goes around rural Ireland and asks a very simple question as to whether the people have confidence in him with regard to rural policing and whether he understands the first thing about what a local garda living in a community has meant, the people of rural Ireland would say what he is doing is destroying years of hard work. A local garda living in the community, even though he or she might have worked official hours, was seen in the community and provided a level of security which gardaí driving around in squad cars will never provide. Having lived for a long time in a rural community in the happy position of having a local rural garda, I know the reality of such a person living in a community 24 hours a day. It creates a policing situation which cannot be replicated by any other model. If the Minister wants to undo some of the damage he has done, I suggest he reverse this policy and revert to the policy of encouraging local gardaí in rural areas to live in these communities. If he wants to understand the real effect of this, I suggest we bring him to a rural community with local resident gardaí and they will show him the effectiveness of the work they do and that placing them all in district headquarters creates fear in rural Ireland which is unfair to people, particularly older people.

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