100 Garda Stations Closing 2013 - Starting Today

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.

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

For the public and AGS, not such good news.

On Prime Time now

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

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.

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!