Gardaí feel new policing model not working in Mayo

THE new Model of Policing which is being piloted in Mayo is not working because of the lack of gardaí on the frontline, according to Garda sources.
The reduction in the number of frontline gardaí in Mayo was raised at a recent Mayo Joint Policing Committee (JPC) meeting where Chief Superintendent Tony Healy admitted that the county was not getting resources as quickly as he would like.
The Westport Garda District has been hit particularly badly with the Garda Representative Association saying that up to a dozen uniformed gardaí had left and were not being replaced.
The Mayo Garda Division is currently one of the four Garda divisions where the new garda divisional model of policing as proposed by Garda Commissioner Drew Harris is being piloted.
An Garda SíochΡna stated that the new model will free up an estimated ten gardaí per division from administrative duties for redeployment to the frontline but locally gardaí say the model is not working.
A source in the Westport Garda District told The Mayo News that instead of more frontline gardaí the opposite is happening and they are not able to provide a service the public deserve.
“The new policing model is putting us backwards and instead of getting more frontline gardaí we are getting less. There is less gardaí on the street and the public are not getting a service they deserve. Once a crime is recorded on a computer that is all the top brass care about. There is no such thing as investigations because we don’t have the resources and we are basically letting the people down.
“With the new policing model in Mayo we do not have enough gardaí to operate it and the general public do not realise what is going on behind the scenes,” the source said.
Members of the JPC were also informed that Mayo would not receive any new recruits following the recent graduation ceremony in the Garda Training College in Templemore.

Disappointment
Ronan O’Grady, the Garda Representative Association (GRA) representative in Mayo, expressed his own disappointment at the lack of new recruits saying the frontline was being decimated.
“The number of gardaí on the ground at the moment is getting very tight. We had hoped to get new recruits into the Mayo division because there is a lack of numbers on the frontline in Mayo. We have not got any new gardaí from the Garda Training College since December 2017 when five came that time. All the districts in Mayo are in need of more gardaí but the likes of Claremorris and Westport [garda districts] are in a particular bad way.
“In Westport the numbers have been decimated in the last two years where we lost 12 frontline gardaí through promotions and others joining specialised units and they haven’t been replaced. The frontline gardaí are the ones who respond to calls from the public whether they are traffic accidents or burglaries. There are less gardaí to do the same work and the public expect results,” he explained.
Garda O’Grady, who serves on the GRA Central Executive Committee, said that the Westport and Claremorris districts are two of the biggest geographically in the county and policing them was more difficult without frontline gardaí.
“The Commissioner [Drew Harris] said the the new policing model will result in more frontline gardaí [but] to me we are seeing the opposite,” he added.