garda review Editorial December 2011

Station closures is shortsighted folly

The Garda Representative Association was alarmed, but not surprised, by the Government’s announcement that 31 garda stations are to be closed. The idea has been mooted many times. On each occasion public reaction and political opposition proved unpalatable. An Bord Snip Nua floated the idea in 2009, which was dropped because potential savings were considered insignificant. The reduction of garda numbers since has left rural stations without a full-time garda and they have been abandoned. In effect this leaves many rural areas without a police presence.

No specific savings are identified with the closure of garda stations, and the Department of Justice’ suggestion that the buildings and sites could be sold, in the current property market, is risible. To close garda stations signifies the break up of a network so carefully constructed in 1922; that survived the armed attacks of 1925-1926 and served the State through the poverty of the 1930s, the emergency situation in the Second World War, the austerity of the 1950s, the economic desperation of the 1980s and several decades of the Troubles. But not, it seems, the post-boom economy of a modern European country.

The public have long taken for granted that their gardaí are of the community - an integral part of - not a police force imposed upon it from outside. The local garda station is the physical embodiment of this principle. The Government has voiced their priority to protect the vulnerable in society, but nowhere is this more practical than in retaining the local garda. For many people, contact with their local garda and postman is their route for engagement with the wider society; key people with whom they can share their anxieties and fears.

The public will be outraged when their local garda no longer opens the small station in the village, or the members of the local urban station are redeployed to the larger central headquarters. For a time they may retain their connection with local gardaí if they see them out in the patrol car, but as time moves on and a new generation evolve, they will only see the garda in the patrol car coming from outside of their community. Then it will be too late.

This folly has precedent in Britain. The ‘local bobby’ was re-evaluated out of existence, and the close interpersonal relationships that police officers initiated, nurtured and harvested in the community’s hour of need were lost, abandoned and betrayed. Only now is there a cartoon lightbulb switching on above the authorities’ heads – and a reversal of this shortsighted madness is being sought – as they attempt to re-establish the local constable into the community. Our own government is singularly failing to learn from our neighbour’s mistake.

We have seen the Cabinet make errors of judgement and rapidly following with U-turns on discredited and unpopular policy. We are under no illusion: This is just a toe in the water - if these station closures are allowed to progress there will be many more to follow. It is the thin end of a wrecking wedge.

A vital role of the local garda station is intelligence gathering and a detailed knowledge of human and terrain geography, provided by the local sub-district station, without which crimes become harder to solve. This knowledge facilitates intelligence-led operations to specifically target criminals and their support networks outside their normal environment. Some of the biggest crimes have been solved in the smallest stations.

To say we no longer afford to have a small building designated as a garda station says how far we have come as a nation since 1922. We must not forfeit them lightly.