Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I very much respect Deputy Smith and his strong views and, indeed, his significant experience in this House and in the Border region, so I take seriously what he says. He will know that I have to say respectfully that the deployment of gardaí and management structures is, as it should be, a matter for the Garda Commissioner. What we can do, as a Government, is make sure that we increase the size of the Garda, increase the resources available to the Commissioner, have more men and women in the Garda, have more vehicles, have better Garda stations, as we have in Bailieborough, and provide bodycams and provide equipment, resources and more people to help them.

To be frank, I think there are two benefits to the new model that I would feed back respectfully to Border communities. The first is that, at its heart, it is about freeing up gardaí to be out on the front line. At its heart, it is trying to move away from just looking at it from an office point of view towards how we get more gardaí onto the front line. The second is the fact of the specialist units not being based just in the big cities and the populous parts of this country but in the regions as well. I will feed the Deputy’s views back to the Garda Commissioner.

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