Garda numbers in Cork 'blatantly inadequate'
Cork County Council is to invite Garda Commissioner Drew Harris to a special meeting to discuss insufficient garda numbers in the region.
At Tuesday’s full meeting of Cork County Council, Fianna Fáil councillor Seamus McGrath received strong support from council members for his motion calling on commissioner Harris to come to the county.
Cllr McGrath said the meeting would focus on the “blatantly inadequate” garda numbers in Cork.
He said: “Many of our county areas are desperately underserved with garda numbers.
“They’re not able to carry out the kind of community policing they would like to because they’re stretched too far,” added Cllr McGrath.
The issue of insufficient garda numbers in county Cork has been discussed many times at County Hall in recent years.
Last month, 108 men and women graduated as gardaí from Templemore. Of the 108, all of Cork received 10, with the majority reportedly assigned to Dublin.
“I think that speaks for itself; we’re getting a disproportionate number of garda graduates,” continued Cllr McGrath.
The invitation to meet with Cork County Council follows a visit by Commissioner Harris to Cork City Council earlier this month to discuss ongoing policing issues in the city.
According to Fine Gael councillor Jack White, the Irish Government must now look abroad for a model that allows for the recruitment and retention of new police in a full employment economy.
“If the public service pay agreement precludes the hiring through better wages of police, I think that’s something that really needs to be looked at on a policy level,” said Cllr White.
“In a full employment economy, people are going into other lines of work, other industries, and they’re not as attracted to the guards as they once were,” he added.
Independent Ireland councillor John Collins agreed that low wages and a lack of incentives are hindering recruitment of new gardaí, saying: “McDonald’s would pay more”.
“Successive governments have demoralised confidence in the gardaí,” said Cllr Collins.
“Why is confidence so low in the guards? It started when Alan Shatter started closing down rural stations around Ireland which opened up rural Ireland for criminals,” he added.
Mr Collins also said he felt it was a “disgrace” that the minister for justice had gone outside of the state to appoint Mr Harris as Garda Commissioner in 2018. Mr Harris is from Belfast where he served as deputy chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland from 2014 to 2018.
“I have no problem meeting the man, he’s probably a very nice man, but I think there was no need for our minister for justice to go outside the state to appoint a commissioner,” said Cllr Collins.