I am grateful to the Chair for allowing me raise this matter and to the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform for attending in person to deal with it. This is an important matter not just in my constituency but throughout rural areas and perhaps in the cities but I do not have evidence on the cities.
In recent years the Minister adopted a hands off approach. Rural Garda stations are being closed by stealth as manpower falls to most unsatisfactory levels. The Minister and top Garda management are systematically and deliberately reducing Garda manpower levels. Figures for the midlands that I collated show a dramatic reduction in numbers over a ten year period. This is totally unacceptable. I look forward to the Minister confirming the future viability of rural Garda stations with particular reference to the issues I raise.
Week after week at district courts, sitting judges express alarm and dissatisfaction at the number of people appearing before them on public order offences and general vandalism. They are angry. The situation is very serious and the Garda are not operating at full complement. In Laois-Offaly, cutbacks at larger stations such as Tullamore and Portlaoise reflect the serious depletion in numbers. In rural areas, Garda manpower levels have been reduced by 66 and two thirds per cent in many cases over a period of ten years or less. In Rhode in County Offaly there was one sergeant in 1990 and two gardaí, now there is one garda at the station for the few hours it is open. In Borris-in-Ossory there was one sergeant and two gardaí, now there is one garda. In Arless in 1990 there was one sergeant and two gardaí, ten years later there is a lone garda. In Durrow, a growing town on a very busy road, in 1990 there was one sergeant and two gardaí, now there is a sergeant and no garda. In Ballacolla, in 1990 there were two gardaí, now there is one. That trend is continued throughout Laois and Offaly. I am sure if I expressed the same interest in other constituencies, the figures would be similar.
Added to that is the serious trend that has developed recently where, because of the depletion in numbers at larger stations such as Portlaoise and Tullamore – six have left Tullamore and seven have left Portlaoise – gardaí are drafted in from rural areas and towns such as Portarlington, Mountmellick, Edenderry and Mountrath to help maintain public order in Tullamore and Portlaoise. They are asked to engage in out of area duties in places where they do not know the people. It is most unfair to expect them to engage in the type of activity to which they are best suited in towns of which they have no knowledge and where they are not known.
In Portarlington recently, the Garda car and gardaí were commandeered by whoever is in charge in the Phoenix Park depot and told they and the car were to spend the night in Portlaoise which meant there was no garda in Portarlington on a busy weekend night. In Mountmellick the position is such that there was a lone garda in a patrol car on duty all night. That was the sole Garda representation in a town that is experiencing considerable growth. I thought that, as far as gardaí were concerned, the practice of having one garda alone at night on foot patrol or in a car had been discontinued. I was surprised to learn that is still the practice. It is wrong that a single garda should be left alone on duty at night in large towns such as Portarlington, Edenderry, Mountmellick and Mountrath.
I call on the Minister to take action and ensure the type of Garda cover the people demand as being appropriate is made available.
