Sinn Féin TD for Dublin Bay North Denise Mitchell has said that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are “undermining” community safety by not increasing the number of Gardaí.
Mitchelll said the government has failed to address the issue of declining policing numbers which she says, in turn, is having a negative effect on crime deterrence.
Figures published in the Irish Independent showed that the garda station in Clontarf has lost 11 gardaí over the last year, with little sign of effort being made to plug the gap.
In December 2023, there were 64 gardaí at Clontarf garda station and 23 gardaí at Howth garda station.
In December 2024, those same figures were 53 and 20, respectively.
Mitchell said the statistics are a symptom of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael’s “failure to address the problem.”
Figures from the Central Statistics Office showed a 9% increase in the number of attempts or threats of murder, assault and harassment in Dublin for 2024 compared to 2023.
Across Dublin as a whole, garda numbers have fallen from 4,002 in 2011 to 3,809 in 2024.
Mitchell noted that the population of Dublin has increased since 2011, yet there are fewer gardaí per person in Dublin than there were in 2011.
She said, “there are too few gardaí to meet the needs of an increased population; this is a dereliction of duty that Minister Jim O’Callaghan must now tackle this issue seriously as a matter of urgency, and that this would only be done by increasing the training capacity of An Garda Síochána”
“The lack of gardaí has very serious consequences for our community in terms of deterring crime, investigating crime and ensuring that people feel safe.”
“Successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael governments have failed to properly plan for and address this issue for more than a decade. This is a dereliction of duty, and communities right across the state are now paying the consequences,” the Sinn Féin TD said.
“There is a serious problem in terms of garda visibility, particularly in terms of the lack of community gardaí. Until there is a significant increase in the training capacity of An Garda Síochána, this problem will not be fixed.”
Mitchell said that her party has called for the number of gardaí to be increased to 16,00 nationwide and that each community, such as Clontarf, should have a “sufficient amount of gardaí assigned to each station.”