Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As a small aside, it is a bit peculiar to make reference to districts given that the new operating model is based on the divisional model, as the Minister of State has mentioned. The districts are not really the metric any more. Making a comparison with 2015, which was the lowest point, is something of a distraction. In any event, we are focused on a particular part of the district, which is quite large and takes in much of the south side of Cork city and the outlying area. The population of much of that area has not significantly changed for the past 20 or 30 years. The issue here is that Carrigaline has grown exponentially, and I expect the same can be said of other commuter towns. Its population has exploded, multiplying in the past decade or two, and Garda resources have not kept pace. If there were to be an incident at night in one of the outlying areas, like Crosshaven or Passage, or if gardaí have to provide support in Douglas, there is no squad car in a town of 15,000 people, 5,000 of whom are under the age of 18.

Some of the frustration on the ground is that gardaí do not have the capacity to go beyond just responding to issues. An awful lot of the focus of the community policing model, and even the new operating model, is about being proactive, building connections with community and preventing crime. If the resources are not there to put two gardaí on to the street to patrol a community, then that effort is seriously hampered. We need to get to a point where gardaí are not just firefighting but are proactively preventing crime, and are in a position to put strategies in place.

The gardaí on the ground are absolutely fantastic. There are some really excellent gardaí. People will be familiar with the two community gardaí, Garda Damien Craven and Garda Stephen Cleary. There are many others but they are enormously stretched. The population figure I have given is taken from the most recent available census figures but I expect it could be close to 18,000 by the time the results of the latest census come back.

I have made the point that there are 5,000 young people in the town, which is a huge number at one in three of the population. The youth diversion project in the community does not have a permanent building. That needs to be considered because we need to plan for the long term, which is something for which the Department does have direct responsibility.

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