John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for a well read response. He says the distribution of gardaí is exclusively a matter for the Garda Commissioner, but he fails to explain why there is a huge increase relatively speaking in the Garda station in Portlaoise, one of the stations in the Minister's constituency. The Minister of State referred to Templemore, but its closure does not explain the discrepancy between the increase in numbers at Portlaoise Garda station and the decrease in the numbers in Dublin Garda stations across all services. The numbers are down 1,000 gardaí since 2010. The number of community gardaí has dropped from 508 to 310 in 2017. Garda Reserve numbers have dropped from 508 in 2010 to 175 in 2017.

People want gardaí on the beat, visible community gardaí, proper resources and reasonably rapid response times for people who are in need. We will continue to drive this message home until Dublin gets the deserved and warranted number of gardaí relative to the rest of the country.

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