Longford public are being "starved" of adequate garda resources in wake of violent incidents

That's the veiled warning from Roscommon/Longford GRA representative Dave Conroy following a resurgence in serious crime over the past two weeks.

The most recent of those involved a female officer being forced to sign off from work while attempting to execute an arrest last weekend while on Monday night three women were arrested after allegedly being found with a sawn-off shotgun.

Mr Conroy said there was nothing unsurprising about the sudden reawakening in organised crime locally and said the Longford public had been let down by politically fuelled decisions.

"Successive governments have starved the Gardaí and people of Longford of adequate garda resources and by doing that they have significantly dismantled policing in the area and left the Gardaí I represent as well as the law abiding public exposed to unacceptable risks to their own safety," he said.

The local GRA representative added the only way in which to combat such incidents and reduce the level of risk to both rank and file members as well as the wider public was for greater resources to be given to garda management at a local level.

"Is it going to take the incapacitation of a garda or a member of the public or one of the people involved in these feuds to be murdered before something is done?"

For more, see next week's Longford Leader.