'Victimised and forgotten': No Garda probationers ‘a slap in the face to Longford’

A county councillor has described as "a slap in the face to Longford," the revelation that the county will not be receiving any allocation of the 194 probationer Gardaí who graduated from Templemore.

Following the release of the Garda deployment locations, Cllr Seamus Butler took to his social media and questioned why the Mayo / Roscommon / Longford division was the only one without an allocation of Probationer Gardai. 

"We badly need more Gardaí on the streets of Longford Town," he wrote. Comments posted by members of the public echoed this opinion.

According to a Garda spokesman, the latest graduates of Templemore - 87 of whom will be stationed in the Dublin region, 39 in the eastern region, 47 in the southern region, and 21 in the north western region - have all been allocated "to training Garda stations" which will in turn allow for existing members to transfer to other divisions.

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Speaking to the Longford Leader, Cllr Butler said it was "absolutely standing out that Mayo/Roscommon/Longford was the only Garda division in the whole country not to get any probationer Gardaí from the present Templemore qualification class."

Cllr Butler also pointed out that with past, and often minor, incidents of street violence having been overly highlighted on social media, the best way to counteract any safety fears that were now embedded in the public mindset regarding Longford town is for the Gardaí to have a stronger, and more visible, presence.

He explained, "I can only talk about Longford but I have been saying for a number of years now that one of the things to make people feel safer - statistically Longford is a safe place but psychologically, through past street violence, and incidents of that nature, people have said they often don't feel safe in Longford.

“If, psychologically, they don't feel safe, then they won't feel safe. The only way to counteract this is to have a Garda foot patrol and street presence every day.

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“They need to be seen to be there. This would also be a deterrent for any repeat of the relatively minor incidents - but that get highlighted on social media.

“People often feel too afraid to go into Longford because of things that have happened in the past and for fear that they might happen again. A stronger Garda presence would help reassure those people.

“ Unless they can give assurance that the numbers are more than sufficient to provide that reassurance in Longford then we are being victimised and forgotten. It's a slap in the face for Longford.”

When presented with Cllr Butler's request to know why the Longford region had not received any new recruits, a Garda spokesperson explained that the force "does not comment on current or future deployment of resources."

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The spokesman added, "Managing deployment of resources in a large national organisation such as An Garda Síochána, with over 560 Garda stations throughout the country, is a complex process.

“The allocation of Garda resources takes a number of factors into consideration, including but not limited to, population, crime trends, operational strategies and the policing needs of individual areas which are kept under constant review, in order to maximise An Garda Síochána service capacity to our communities.

“An Garda Síochána, as a family-friendly organisation, also has responsibilities for supporting individual employees’ circumstances and work-life balance policies."