Locals call for more gardaí on southside

Residents of Blackrock and Mahon have requested that more gardaí be assigned to their local station.

Residents expressed the need for more gardaí at the latest meeting of the Blackrock/Mahon Neighbourhood Safety Forum on Monday 15 June.

One resident of the area said the shortage of garda manpower was “chronic” and the area was being affected by crime such as drug dealing and dangerous driving. They added there were not enough gardaí to deal with these issues.

However, Inspector David Noonan said the issue of manpower was solely a matter for the Garda Commissioner, but he would take any resources that were available to him.

“Garda resources are a very valuable commodity. We try to deploy what resources are to hand to areas where there are issues or problems. We try to be responsive to any issues or problems within the community,” he said.

He highlighted a “significant number” of gardaí are currently in training at the Garda Training College in Templemore.

“More gardaí are coming, and will be coming,” he said.

In November, 46 gardaí were assigned to Cork city as part of the force’s high visibility policing strategy.

However, Inspector Noonan said this has had the effect of “displacing some of the issues that were inherent to the city centre to some of the outer suburbs”.

Labour Party Cllr Peter Horgan said Cork City Council, at its latest meeting on Monday 8 June, passed a motion calling on the Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly to assign more gardaí to Blackrock and Douglas garda stations. He said a common complaint he heard from constituents was they find it difficult to ring a garda station directly if they have a query, instead being told to contact 999.

“We have a dedicated regional control room based in Anglesea Street, there are people there specifically waiting to take your calls,” said Inspector Noonan. If you need gardaí to come out to your house or your business to respond to some incident, you dial the 999 line, that is the best way to get in touch with the gardaí,” he said.

This article was produced with the support of the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme funded by Coimisiún na Meán.