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

Mahon is a very proud, strong community. Incidentally, it is a community which has welcomed a number of people fleeing the conflict in Ukraine. I take this opportunity to extend my apologies to Mahon Community Centre, the Mahon Family Resource Centre and everyone involved in the Mahon Welcomes event happening today. I am here because I have a piece of legislation later on. It is a resilient community and has responded well to this crisis.

In 2009, there were 31 gardaí in Blackrock Garda Station. In 2017, there were 22 gardaí. On Monday, the website said there were 17 gardaí posted to the station. The complement was effectively reduced by 50% and then by 50% again, almost. Certainly, it has halved over that time. The station has gone from 31 gardaí to 22 to 17 in a little over 13 years. Surely the Minster of State can see that is not anywhere near good enough. As I have already said, Mahon is a proud, active community with a strong voluntary community. Like any community, it has challenges. There have been ongoing issues with criminal damage to the premises of some of the excellent sporting clubs there, like Ringmahon Rangers, Ballinure GAA and St. Michael's GAA. There have been other issues with antisocial behaviour. These are the kind of challenges any community would face, but that these are the Garda numbers allocated to the area is simply unacceptable. It is a serious diminution. The local gardaí, especially the community gardaí, are doing their absolute best, but they are stretched more and more. Garda members are being asked to do the same work, effectively, with much reduced numbers. If other stations are under pressure, Mahon's gardaí are potentially being called out to them. It is hard to know sometimes whether there is always a squad car available at night to respond to things. People have noticed reductions in response times, issues with phone calls to the station and other issues like that. That is not good enough. It is an area that deserves better support than that.

As I am speaking on policing and crime prevention, I take the opportunity to note the fact there have been a number of shocking attacks on taxi drivers over recent months. Taxi drivers do not deserve to be in fear of assault when they are just going about doing their jobs. There were a number of fairly serious assaults. Many drivers do not report them to the Garda because they fear nothing will happen. I encourage anyone, if they can, to report things to the Garda, but the fear drivers have is there will not be a follow-on from it. There have been too many attacks and a number of drivers were injured. Drivers are extremely worried, so I urge gardaí in Cork to engage with the drivers and the National Transport Authority to ensure they are protected in whatever way possible.

Returning to the issue at hand, the drop in numbers in Mahon is enormous. There are other crime prevention resources needed as well for youth diversion and other crime prevention measures. What people especially want to see is gardaí on the street. It is the best way of discouraging crime. I urge the Minister of State to take that back to the Minister for Justice and the Garda Commissioner.

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