Carrigy and Flaherty in war of words over future of Granard garda station

Last week Justice Minister, Helen McEntee, was in town for the implementation of the Longford Community Safety plan.

Community Safety Partnerships are a government initiative to “build stronger, safer communities”, however on the day of the announcement Deputy Flaherty flagged concerns regarding staffing at one of the county's main Garda stations.

He said: “The crime office, which is plain clothes officers in Granard, is to be closed down and the three officers assigned to that unit are to be reassigned to other areas around the county.”

Deputy Flaherty warned: “The fear is that this is the first step in a gradual phasing-down of the station and this, in-time, will regrettably lead to reduced opening hours in the station.”

Seanad member Carrigy criticised the Longford Westmeath TD saying: “It was more than disappointing that Deputy Joe Flaherty (FF) put out a statement scaremongering residents particularly in the Granard District on the same day as the launch.”

He said The Longford Community Safety Plan “is to not just to keep people in Longford safe, but also also that we feel safe”.

“There will be no reduction in uniform Garda in the district, in fact we will have more on the beat with sanction of four civilian staff for, two each for Granard and Longford, to free up Gardai from desk duty,” Senator Carrigy maintained.

The Fine Gael representative believes local services will be augmented: “Plans are also being put in place to put extra staff in Edgeworthstown station. The plan to amalgamate the two detective units, who investigate crime, makes sense, to help taking down the crime families and those who facilitated them who have done so much damage in our community.”

Deputy Flaherty was adamant he's not “scaremongering”: “The reality is that the crime office is being closed in the Granard station,” he told the Leader, “If it was just being centralised it would make sense, but two of the officers are being transferred to a dedicated unit. The third is not available to the county. The crime office was critical for crime prevention in the Granard area.”

He says by working in the specialist unit the Detectives will no longer be available for detecting duties in the county: “When you take out the crime office the next logical step is reduced opening hours, similar to Edgeworthstown, similar to Ballymahon and similar to Lanesboro. It's the first step in the downgrading of a Garda station.”

Superintendent Seamus Boyle says changes in divisional operations have taken place all over the country in the last week. The Longford and Granard districts have merged into a single “community engagement area”.

The new division will have a crime hub based in Castleree. Superintendent Tom Colsh will be over the new crime hub with three inspectors working under him. He will be in charge of the detectives in the new division.

Superintendent Boyle said the detective branch in County Longford will be increased with additional staff. He said the Granard inspectors may be relocated to Longford if they can be accommodated, but there was a guarantee that there will be two sergeants and 12 Gardai in a hub in Longford town to investigate crime in the county.

He said the re-assignment of the Granard inspectors has yet to be decided, but added: “Longford is a small county. Instead of having three fellows working in a unit on their own in Granard and four working separately in Longford we [will] have the two merged together.”

The superintendent stressed that there will be no reduction in uniformed Gardaí in Granard and no change to the amount to time the station will be open.

Senator Carrigy believes the actions taken are the correct way to proceed: “I see it as a plus. I'm very disappointed in a public representative in our county not supporting anything that is going to tackle the serious criminals we have here in our county and damaged the good name of our county,” he concluded.