A lot of these Garda stations would have been unmanned most of the time, or staffed by one guard anyway, so they were practically useless unless you wanted a form filled in.

How can you think that a Garda station acts as a crime deterrent unless the pensioner actually lives next to it? They don’t act as crime deterrents in towns and cities, so they’re not going to do so in the middle of nowhere either. Even being half a kilometre away from one (which in rural areas is almost nothing), you can still get broken into and robbed in the length of time it would take to call the guards and have them arrive at your house.

Old people need to feel safe and secure at home, yes. I don’t for one minute believe that **anyone**, regardless of age, should feel unsafe at home. But useless Garda stations is not the way to do that because for 90% of the week, the Garda station is just a house with a blue sign outside of it.

The fact that they are understaffed is not a reason to close them. The fact that they are understaffed in the first place is wrong. More Gardai are needed. Glad you mentioned filling in forms
as well. They provide a service to rural communities already deprived of public transport, how do you propose this service will be replaced?

Yes, rural areas are severely deprived of public transport. But the people in these areas have adapted to getting a lift/driving to the supermarket, the doctor, the pharmacy, the Post Office etc., so I’m sure they’ll just as easily adapt to getting a lift/driving to a Garda station to have a form filled in once every two/five/ten years.

Ah it’s fine then. Continue to strip every last resource from rural communities and isolate those who live there

I am originally from a rural area, and not even in the middle of nowhere, it’s a small town of 2,000 people with an almost-never-open Garda station.

Whenever I needed a form filled in while I lived there, it was quicker to go to a bigger town to have it done than to wait and see if the Garda station would open when the notice on the door said it would open, which was almost never. Whenever you would ring the station, your call would (95% of the time) be transferred to one 25km away. And that same Garda station isn’t even on that list, so I can only imagine how underutilised the ones listed above are.

Donncha, I’d say you live in an urban area , now as for getting a form signed, that may have no relevance to you, until you want a form signed, then a trip of maybe 20 miles to a Garda station, and twenty more home might just seem excessive, even to you . Now many of theese forms can’t be signed unless the Garda knows you personally, do you see where I’m going with this. We then move on to your personal safety, when you hear the glass break on your back door in the middle of the night, you then hit the problem of ringing that same station twenty miles away and trying to give directions to a Garda again who dose not know you or never heard of the townsland you live in, giving directions to a stranger who’s lost is awkward enough, now imagine trying to do it at 5am and a car full of masked thugs coming up your stairs, this is a reality an all too frequent occurrence , now your directions have to be relayed to a car, again miles from you, with directions given under unimaginable pressure, my friend it’s then you will realise the value of having your local ‘ form signing,” Garda at the end of the phone, who knows where you live, what car you drive and how to get to you in the fastest time possible..think of the above scenario and replace yourself with an elderly person living alone, any society worth it’s salt since time began cherished it elders for their experience and wisdom of years,we are now making them dread the once welcome sound of a car in the yard or a visitors step .

As I have said, I am from a rural town so I know all about travelling to get forms filled. My parents live nine doors up from the Garda station and the guards there wouldn’t know any of my family from Adam, let alone what cars they drive. I have never understood this need to get a form signed at your local station because the guards will supposedly know you. They won’t because there is no habit of getting to know a local community when a guard is given a new post. This is a change that needs to come from the top.

As well as that, even if the guards did know my family, and my parents’ house were being broken into at 5am, as it stands at the moment, there wouldn’t be anyone in that Garda station nine doors away. They’d be giving directions to someone in the station 25km away and the house would be completely ransacked by the time someone would get there. And this is with a Garda station in the town. People are kidding themselves if they think that the above stations are useful in crime prevention with the numbers of guards that we have in the country. I would stake money on saying that none of the stations above are ever staffed at night.

I firmly believe that Alan Shatter should be recruiting more Gardaí to staff underutilised Garda stations. Templemore should never have been closed. But when there aren’t enough Gardaí to go around, keeping these stations open is absolutely pointless.

Gerry, that is absolute rubbish about a garda needing to know you personally. I don’t know any of the gardai in the garda station where I get forms signed.

Before u dismiss something as absolute rubbish make sure it is. Forms for pensioners who yearly have to appear and have a form signed basically saying that they are still breathing, must be signed by someone who knows them passports equally, that’s two, just to get rid of the ” absolute” bit anyway,

What form to prove you’re still alive?? I lived with my grandmother until she died and she never had to get such a form signed to say she was alive, and she was well beyond pension age.

And anyway, getting a passport form signed once every ten years in another town is hardly a burden now, is it? And if you can afford to go away, you can afford to travel a few miles to get the form signed.

Ah Gerry, will you stop making stuff up. A persons GP can normally sign certain forms for people. No person in this state needs to personally know a garda to get things done. Enough with the BS.

Good luck getting your passport from your G.P, or maybe that’s coming next..

Never had a problem getting a passport thanks. Never needed to know the garda who signed the forms either.

You idiot. You obviously have no clue how things work. A Garda in these stations are always on duty and claim no extra pay or overtime. The deterrent is always there. It’s people like you who think they know everything but really have no idea how things work. You are not in touch with reality like the rest of your political elite.

This is not about getting forms filled. This is about losing the local face of the gardai. People in communities like these were able to approach the gard after mass in the local shop and chat to him about any problem. It’s amazing how many incidents were solved just by having that person in the community

Now that’s BS, must b catching..

We could just close Cork entirely?

Mick – Our understanding is that they’re still open on a very short-term basis, where a Garda reserve offers limited office hours to perform duties like stamping passport application forms.

This is McCurtain Street Garda station in Cork on Google Maps:

https://maps.google.ie/maps?q=McCurtain+Street,+Cork&hl=en&ll=51.901327,-8.466133&spn=0.000885,0.002642&sll=51.127065,16.991864&sspn=0.230549,0.676346&t=h&hnear=MacCurtain+St,+Cork,+County+Cork&z=19&layer=c&cbll=51.901324,-8.465987&panoid=k_tIWwpNCOyY0eIwMUkioA&cbp=12,21.86,,0,3.2

Pic taken in June 2009 according to Google’s data. Closed a long time by the looks of it.

Both are definitely closed years,It’s just Shatter is so out of touch he hasn’t a clue whats going on, @ vincent go play with the traffic,FG apologist

Ballycastle (mayo) had one garda it wasnt even a garda station and he retired around three or four years ago.

Says the man from Dundalk !!! lol

Who’s going to buy them? Nobody has money

They will be dying to get into one of the already closed stations

Time to tool up and protect ourselves.n

This Government is all for Dublin and they have clearly forgotten about the rest of the country. Same for RTE

Shatter then will issue a soundbite where he ”condemns,abhors, finds it deplorable” what the community are doing

Wonder what’s in Terenure resulting in it being kept open?

And so right they should just saying what the people that elected them their want them to say

Great friends to the Gardai alright Vincent – a point well illustrated in Adare in 1996.

You might find if you did some research that the numbers working in those 1300 stations in Britain is incomparably higher than the numbers here and you might also find that crime rates in some parts of Britain are through the roof so perhaps we shouldn’t be looking at their model as one to look up to

Here is your answer, 13,000 guards compared to 137,000 police in the UK(excluding transport police) that’s 1:346 in Ireland and 1:400 in the UK so its not a huge difference.

theres not a huge difference in the distance they cover ciaran.
90 percent of policing is the ability to show a presence and be a deterrent.
Much easier to do that with 137,000 than with 13,000 and dropping!

But do you actually think the Gardaí are effective? I can’t remember the last time I saw a patrol either on foot or in a car. They are not utilized correctly and it’s not mainly due to manpower. They are unorganized and seem to accept that they are. How many Gardaí have gone out and tried to make proposals for changes in preventing crime?

Spend a bit of time in dunsink, Summerhill, sheriff street, cabra, the south inner city or sheepmoor to name but a few and you should see a few patrols. You would be surprised how few guards are working on a unit that are free to go on the beat on a daily basis. It’s hard to get a grasp on when looking from the outside.

Larger stations but less gardai due to lack of recruitment and retirements. Take into fact that resources are now divided by five and not four. Now take into account that the number of patrol cars to patrol the larger areas are diminishing by the day. Yeah so even if they’re out patrolling the thin spread becomes even thinner you’re simple solution is well thought out……