100 Garda Stations Closing 2013 - Starting Today

Colonialboy

95 rural and urban Garda stations close their doors for good today, despite protests from Garda representative bodies.

A total of one hundred Garda stations will close in 2013. The closure of these Garda stations will be on a phased basis with the stations included in the first phase closing today, 31st January 2013.


Minister for Justice Alan Shatter has said garda stations do not act as a deterrent to burglaries and that the 100 stations that are due to close this year will be shut down.
There are 95 stations closing today in what Mr Shatter said is essentially a paper exercise, which recognises the reality that Ireland does not require a garda station network devised in colonial times.

I love that bit ... colonial times.. wonder does he think the same about a political and judicial system evolved in colonial times. Bet we wish we had our old rail network that was devised in colonial times ...

Shame on you all who took this decision especially given the tragic events in Dundalk in the last few days.

The FG spin doctors earned their 30 pieces of silver today, I trust you will sleep easy in your beds tonight, I know of alot of people who wont be...shame on you is all I can say.

Gallee

I hear Shatter on News at 1. He was asked for a comment on the fact that 5 out of 6 patrol vehicles in one district in Kilkenny were off the road. Is this right?

I am also looking for some information if some Members can help. Can any member give me an example of how cuts to the Garda budget are effecting Police work. The reason I ask is I intend to raise this with my local TD. I am particularly interest in the state of the Fleet and equipment some guy told me they have no public order van in a place the size of a similar size to Tullamore etc.. i.e. what is being cut that is not allowing you guys to do your job more effectively? Just note I am not asking for anything confidential or breaching the charter.

timmywex

Gallee wrote: »

I hear Shatter on News at 1. He was asked for a comment on the fact that 5 out of 6 patrol vehicles in one district in Kilkenny were off the road. Is this right?

I am also looking for some information if some Members can help. Can any member give me an example of how cuts to the Garda budget are effecting Police work. The reason I ask is I intend to raise this with my local TD. I am particularly interest in the state of the Fleet and equipment some guy told me they have no public order van in a place the size of a similar size to Tullamore etc.. i.e. what is being cut that is not allowing you guys to do your job more effectively? Just note I am not asking for anything confidential or breaching the charter.

Wouldn't be surprised at all.

How it affects policing:
- No overtime for investigations.
- No overtime to cover leave/court duty etc
- No investment in vehicles, numbers dropping off daily due to milage limits/crashs/repairs etc
- No recruitment
- Specialist units being broken up and members redeployed
- No training
- Rural stations closing (Even though the small crime numbers its about prevention & intelligence gathering aswell)


Piles more obviously, they are just off the top of my head

pa990

This is GREAT NEWS, well, for the criminal fraternity at least.

For the public and AGS, not such good news.

Sierra Oscar

The government is coming under some intense pressure over this matter and the Minister doesn't seem to have much of a handle on things at the moment. There is no hope in hell that he will get through the next round of station closures without some sort of sweetener for people. I suspect we will see an intake being announced before the end of this year, although it will likely only be small scale in nature.

Shatter said on the news today that he would consult the cabinet on the matter of recruitment itself.

HeidiHeidi

On Prime Time now

Samson1

This Minister and Government will go down in history for closing 95 Garda Stations the day after a murdered Garda was buried. They didn't have the sensitivity to even postpone it. Shame on them forever.

jank

Samson1 wrote: »

This Minister and Government will go down in history for closing 95 Garda Stations the day after a murdered Garda was buried. They didn't have the sensitivity to even postpone it. Shame on them forever.

It was already agreed long in advance, to postpone it would have been unwise as it would have been seen as a populist u-turn.

Arawn

I live in a rural enough part of Kilkenny, the area where the police car from Dublin was stolen and drove to. The policing in this area is a joke and rife with theft and drugs. I have not checked but can pretty much guarantee that the police station will close

Zambia

Courtesy of the WA Police

Image speaks for itself.

BaronVon

Timmy Dooley said it well.....

quikquest

Gallee wrote: »

I hear Shatter on News at 1. He was asked for a comment on the fact that 5 out of 6 patrol vehicles in one district in Kilkenny were off the road. Is this right?

The cars are prob too busy staring in programmes such as Love/Hate and the likes. Seems they like to be on TV more so than in the local cop shops :rolleyes:

I see Garda cars on these shows more than I do in my local area :O

Potential-Monke

timmywex wrote: »

Wouldn't be surprised at all.

How it affects policing:
- No overtime for investigations.
- No overtime to cover leave/court duty etc
- No investment in vehicles, numbers dropping off daily due to milage limits/crashs/repairs etc
- No recruitment
- Specialist units being broken up and members redeployed
- No training
- Rural stations closing (Even though the small crime numbers its about prevention & intelligence gathering aswell)


Piles more obviously, they are just off the top of my head

Just to add to that, and what i believe is the most important negative effect the cuts are having: morale.

The morale is AGS is at rock bottom, and with these cuts and the other measures that are being suggested to cut another €60m, including the reduction of allowences and cut to overtime pay scales, changing Good Friday to a normal days, and forcing members to work 11 hours a day instead of 10, this will lead to many leaving the force.

I've said it in other threads, and i'm saying it again. If i get any more cuts to my basic wage, i'm leaving. I have a mortgage, it will be left to the tax payer to cover it as i won't be able to afford to pay it. My station will be down another member, and others in my station are also seriously considering leaving, especially the younger members who have no ties or financial burdens keeping them in the job.

Through the cuts, and station closures, the Government will save what they want, but it will be through members leaving.

source

quikquest wrote: »

The cars are prob too busy staring in programmes such as Love/Hate and the likes. Seems they like to be on TV more so than in the local cop shops :rolleyes:

I see Garda cars on these shows more than I do in my local area :O

The cars you see in movies and TV shows are not operational garda cars. They are mock ups owned by tv production companies.

coolhandluke

Potential-Monke wrote: »

Just to add to that, and what i believe is the most important negative effect the cuts are having: morale.

The morale is AGS is at rock bottom, and with these cuts and the other measures that are being suggested to cut another €60m, including the reduction of allowences and cut to overtime pay scales, changing Good Friday to a normal days, and forcing members to work 11 hours a day instead of 10, this will lead to many leaving the force.

I've said it in other threads, and i'm saying it again. If i get any more cuts to my basic wage, i'm leaving. I have a mortgage, it will be left to the tax payer to cover it as i won't be able to afford to pay it. My station will be down another member, and others in my station are also seriously considering leaving, especially the younger members who have no ties or financial burdens keeping them in the job.

Through the cuts, and station closures, the Government will save what they want, but it will be through members leaving.

While i do not wish to preempt mondays meeting, i hope you will remain long enough to put up a fight because the govt are just trying to ride us at this stage.

ART6

Potential-Monke wrote: »

Just to add to that, and what i believe is the most important negative effect the cuts are having: morale.

The morale is AGS is at rock bottom, and with these cuts and the other measures that are being suggested to cut another €60m, including the reduction of allowences and cut to overtime pay scales, changing Good Friday to a normal days, and forcing members to work 11 hours a day instead of 10, this will lead to many leaving the force.

I've said it in other threads, and i'm saying it again. If i get any more cuts to my basic wage, i'm leaving. I have a mortgage, it will be left to the tax payer to cover it as i won't be able to afford to pay it. My station will be down another member, and others in my station are also seriously considering leaving, especially the younger members who have no ties or financial burdens keeping them in the job.

Through the cuts, and station closures, the Government will save what they want, but it will be through members leaving.

I am not a member of An Garda Siochana. I am just an ordinary citizen without the expertise of the minister. However, I see this as the minister being the chief of staff in command of an army, with the commissioner being the general. Morale is slipping? Then that is a principal priority of them both to address it, and b****y quickly, before they lose the battle. I have spent my career in industry, and the morale of my work force was my single most important motivation. They created the products, they did the work. All I could do was to provide the means for them to do so. In doing so I considered the value of every job to the business, and what that job was worth in pay. So someone who's job was indispensable but often somewhat risky would be appropriately rewarded.

In Ireland plc we have a situation where there are those who would become parasites, creating nothing but stealing from those who do and being prepared to use violence to achieve their aims. We need to protect ourselves from them, and that is why we have the Gardai. Of course, they might not always be right, and some may even be corrupt, but the overwhelming majority of them are like you and I -- doing a job as well as they can.

There is, however, a difference. When I go to work in the morning the chances are that I will not have to tackle a drunk with a knife or a robber with a gun. If I go out on the town for the night I will probably not be called upon to break up a fight outside a nightclub. When I drive my car along the motorway, I will not be called upon to deal with the human wreckage of a crash a few miles ahead that has delayed me on my journey.

So to my point: Pay the emergency services, Gardai, ambulance, fire, what they are worth to Ireland plc. Pay them for the risks that they take and stop comparing them to someone who occupies a typing pool in a Dublin ministry or someone who works in a factory in the private sector or a building site in Donegal. Stop all of this benchmarking bull**** and do the job of management. Pay what the job is worth and what the risks of that job are.

So now, where is the management? Ah! It is hiding behind the skirts of the Troika and the EU. It is dominated by international bean counters that cannot allow the guy who risks his life in protection of his community to take precedence over the guy who invested his millions at risk in the bonds of a financial institution that was both reckless and which should never have existed in the first place if any due diligence had ever been applied.

Is this a rant? Damned right it is! Yes, there are cuts to be made because the income to the government is way below its outgoings irrespective of the repayments to the IMF/ECB that somehow seemed to have disappeared off the balance sheet (you people have spent more than you have earned, so now you have a debt! Nothing to do with the millions of the bank bail-outs. It's your fault, and not the fault of the millionaire investors who risked their money when basic common sense suggested that they were crazy! They cannot be allowed to lose.)

The chosen solution was to form a government based upon a mandate of blatant lies, populated by privileged people who will always be protected by the services for which Joe Public has paid but of which he can no longer avail. That government must, of necessity, follow the instructions of a higher authority even though no-one actually elected that authority or had any real say in its structure.

The morale of the Gardai is low? So is that of the general population as far as I can see!

Iwannahurl

As an ordinary citizen myself, I think if you want to run the country as "Ireland PLC" then it's essential that you have an efficient operation that makes the best use of available resources.

The number of Garda stations is a relic from the days of the RIC, and the current economic and fiscal crisis is hastening a rationalisation that should have been started decades ago.

Dr Vicky Conway, a lecturer in criminal law and policing at the University of Kent, wrote about this issue in the Irish Times yesterday.

Local stations not accurate measure of Garda strength

"Any discussion of the number of Garda stations in Ireland should begin with a recognition that the country has an exceptionally high number of police stations, even with the recent closures.

We will retain more than 550 stations for a population of about 4.5 million. Scotland with a population of 5.2 million has 300 police stations and it was announced in late 2012 that a number of these are to close.

The London Metropolitan Police has 136 police stations for a population of more than eight million. New Zealand has a population of 4.4 million and has just over 400 police stations. Sweden now uses mobile police stations to attend areas which have higher crime rates on certain days of the week."

To continue the business analogy, would you operate a company maintaining nearly 700 branches for a customer base of 4.5 million, if you knew that your counterparts in other countries were providing a similar service for a larger clientele but with fewer premises and hence lower operating costs overall?

Colonialboy

Iwannahurl wrote: »

As an ordinary citizen myself, I think if you want to run the country as "Ireland PLC" then it's essential that you have an efficient operation that makes the best use of available resources.

To continue the business analogy, would you operate a company maintaining nearly 700 branches for a customer base of 4.5 million, if you knew that your counterparts in other countries were providing a similar service for a larger clientele but with fewer premises and hence lower operating costs overall?

blah blah blah ...
lets run the Fire Service as a buisness too .
next time you call them and theres two fires to attend , maybe the fireman should haggle with you and the other person on the line.

You know only go out to the highest bidder.. what will it be , yur mans offering 2 grand to go save his house, what are you going to offer.

ffs we live in a society not a buisness .
People should cop on and stop talking ****e and regurjitating soundbytes they heard on TV , just cos they think it sounds intellegint...

markpb

Colonialboy wrote: »

ffs we live in a society not a buisness .

Even societies have bills to pay.

How about addressing Iwannahurl comments instead of lambasting them for regurjitating soundbytes? Do they have a valid point about the number of Garda stations or not. If they (or the writer of the article) are wrong, why do you think they're wrong? Is there a reason why Ireland needs more Garda stations per person than other countries? Is there a benefit to having Garda stations with a single Garda that are open 8 hours a day or less?

Iwannahurl

Colonialboy wrote: »

blah blah blah ...

ffs we live in a society not a buisness .

Perhaps you might address that comment to the poster who used the business analogy.

ART6 wrote: »

In Ireland plc we have a situation where...