‘We are policing ourselves at this stage’ — Fears around garda numbers being deployed to Wexford

By Simon Bourke, Wexford People

People in south Wexford are being asked to effectively police themselves due to the lack of gardaí in the county during the peak summer months. That’s according to Cllr Jim Codd, who recounted a recent evening in Kilmore Quay, in which he said a squad car deployed to the fishing village was the only one available on the night in question.

“The south of the county has been packed during the heatwave, there are thousands of tourists visiting all the amenities in our district,” he said at the July meeting of the Rosslare Municipal District (RMD). “I was in Kilmore for an event recently and the squad car was called to address a dispute, that car came from Castlebridge and was the only one on duty that night.

“We are policing ourselves at this stage. The guards we have are very good but the Kilmore guard was on the phones in Wexford town that night.”

Cllr Codd received support from Cllr Ger Carthy who said that although new guards were being recruited, they weren’t being sent to Wexford.

“The second last tranche of guards went to Cork and the two previous lots went mostly to Dublin,” he said. “The capital gets sorted out, and Cork gets sorted because the Taoiseach is from there, and meanwhile the Justice Minister (Jim O’Callaghan) ignores Wexford.”

What makes this even more galling, said Cllr Carthy, is the presence of the multi-million Garda HQ in Wexford town.

“The management in the gardaí would tell you that they’re just not getting the guards, they can’t give what they don’t have. We built a nice, big Garda Station which cost tens of millions and they haven’t got the guards to put into it.”

And those who do decide to join the guards are left with what Cllr Codd described as “an impossible task”.

“Who’d be a guard?” he asked. “They have no body cameras and as soon as they open their mouths they’re being recorded on phones. It’s an impossible task.”

On July 24 206 gardaí were attested as sworn members of An Garda Síochána. These 206 newly sworn Gardaí will now take on operational responsibilities and will be allocated as follows: Dublin Region 94. Eastern Region 56. Southern Region 25. North Western Region 31.