Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

In the context of the strategy, the Commissioner has responsibility for the deployment of resources, for example. We know the number of regions has been reduced, from six to four, and the aim is to have 700 to 800 gardaí per division. That assumes there is an equality of service. There are many metrics but it assumes there is some degree of equality of service throughout the country. Counties Kildare and Meath have consistently been shown to have the lowest number of gardaí per capita.

This just proves that as the population grows the services do not grow with it.

In addition to that, in Kildare it is very hard to understand why, with a population just short of 250,000, the division was not placed in Kildare and it was placed in Laois where the population is 91,000. There is a feeling that staff will be deployed from the headquarters in Kildare to Laois, which will further reduce the number of gardaí in Kildare. It is not the only area where this problem is emerging. Can we get assurances that we will not end up with a reduced service on foot of what is being presented as reform?

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