SOUTHSIDERS have raised concerns over the removal of a number of community gardai.
Residents in Stepaside and Dundrum fear that the withdrawal of community gardai will expose locals to increased levels of criminal activity.
These gardai generally have a close relationship with locals and tend to build up strong and mutually supportive personal relationships with community representatives.
John Byrne from Stepaside, a former Fianna Fail councillor, said he learned recently that the local community Garda had been withdrawn from the area following the redeployment of members of the force due to cutbacks.
He maintains that the loss of community gardai locally will have an adverse impact on policing in the area and has called on Garda management to reverse the decision.
“The loss of community gardai is going to have a huge impact,
? he said.
“Until now you were able to contact the community Garda in Stepaside and talk to him about anything that you might have come across and he was able to deal with it fairly promptly.
“Their role in policing is to liaise with residents and community groups within certain areas. Everyone in the community gets to know them. The fear is that the contact with the residents’ groups has been severed.
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He added:
“You still have guards coming into different estates on patrol in their cars but there is less contact with them.
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Mr Byrne said a recent decision to close Stepaside Garda station between the hours of 9pm and 7am had caused a significant degree of concern locally.
“Now that it is closed at night, if you need to call into the Garda station or if it is urgent, you have to contact Dundrum or Blackrock,
? he explained.
“This just lends to that sense of fear that we won’t have the same kind of presence in the area.
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Superintendent Martin Fitzgerald, who is the head of the Dun Laoghaire Garda district, told this newspaper recently that the lack of a requirement to staff Garda stations at night time would actually improve the force’s ability to police the local area.
Ann Docherty, a spokesperson for the Kilcross Estate Management Forum, said the area’s only community Garda who was based in Dundrum had informed her recently that he had also been withdrawn from his post and deployed elsewhere.
Ms Docherty believes that locals would now be more reluctant to contact the gardai and suggested that the loss of close contact with a community Garda would be likely to diminish effective policing in the area.
“Now the community guard is gone we feel that people here might be more hesitant about ringing the guards to report something because they don’t know of any of them in the area.
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A Garda spokesperson said he was unable to comment on local policing matters for operational and security reasons.
“Senior Garda management is satisfied that a full and comprehensive policing service continues to be delivered and that current structures in place meet the requirement to deliver an effective and efficient policing service to the community,
? the spokesperson said.
“The gardai will maintain the current level of service provided to our communities. Any restructuring of the Garda station network in these divisions will only arise to deliver greater efficiencies in the deployment of personnel and other resources to communities within that division.
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