Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The recent drive for new entrant Garda numbers was hugely successful and very welcome. My appeal to the Minister is that when these filter down through the system, that as many as possible are filtered to rural towns and villages. We have 18 Garda stations in Kilkenny and eight in Carlow, operating at varying different levels. One station in my own town of Graiguenamanagh, which is a substation of the Thomastown office that also covers Goresbridge, a couple of years ago had two sergeants and ten gardaí. At present, we have only one sergeant and four gardaí in that area.

In the town of Goresbridge, which is just down the road from me, the Garda station opens for one hour, twice every eight days. We are talking about community policing and while I absolutely agree with the Minister with regard to getting recruitment up, we need visibility and people on the ground. I implore him to encourage as much filtration down the country as possible.

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