O'Rourke seeks meeting on 'shortage' of Gardai in Athlone
The Cathaoirleach of Westmeath County Council has sought an urgent meeting with the newly-appointed Chief Superintendent of the Meath/Westmeath Garda Division in order to highlight what he says is “the chronic shortage of Gardai“ in the Athlone station.
Cllr Aengus O’Rourke claimed there are often “more Garda cars on the street outside the Athlone station than Gardai inside,” and he says the town is “the poor relation” in Westmeath when it comes to the allocation of Garda members.
Against the backdrop of Athlone having “no Community Policing Unit, no dedicated Drugs Unit and no new Gardai,” according to Cllr O’Rourke, he has now written to incoming Chief Supt, John Dollard, seeking a meeting as soon as possible to discuss the issue.
“I want him to know and understand Athlone and the problems we are dealing with,” said Cllr O’Rourke, “and I also want to make him aware of our ambitions here in Athlone, our growth and expansion plans for the town.”
Among the problems highlighted by Cllr O’Rourke are what he said was “a huge drugs problem in the town,” all-day outdoor drinking sessions with intoxicated people hanging around in public places, creating a nuisance and littering, and organised begging crews being “bussed into Athlone in the morning and back out again in the evening.”
Cllr O’Rourke said he had highlighted all these issues to both the outgoing Chief Supt and also to the Garda Commissioner, Drew Harris, at meetings over the past year, and still no action has been taken to increase Garda numbers in Athlone.
Cllr O’Rourke said he raised the question of why Mullingar had 50 more Gardai than Athlone, and highlighted that members of the force felt they had no option but to turn to politicians in order to have the issue of Garda staffing in Athlone addressed.
The situation with regard to Garda shortages is now so critical that Cllr O’Rourke said at times there are “only four gardai manning the barracks in a populated area of 25,000,” which is the reason why the people of Athlone rarely see Gardai on the beat.
The Council Cathaoirleach, whose business office in Athlone is located beside the state-of-the-art Garda Station, said “Athlone is great town, a university town, a popular tourism destination and the business capital of the midlands. We need and deserve a robust, well-resourced cohort of Gardai in this town and what we have at present is not adequate.”
He also paid tribute to the “dedicated, professional and extremely conscientious” members of An Garda Siochana based in Athlone, but said the problem is that there are not enough Gardai.
“We need more Gardai in Athlone, and a lot more” he said.
Cllr O’Rourke said he intends his meeting with Chief Supt Dollard to be “the first of many until progress is made” on all of the issues he has been highlighting for some time.