In Reply to: Re: Stolen bike-20.06.2005 @ 15.10 @ Heaton's posted by Not so cynical please on June 21, 2005 at 13:02:18:

Having had my car damaged in the middle of town (and yes I reported it to the Gardai in Castlebar) I know for a fact that the Gardai don't bother to check the Castlebar CCTV footage (to my knowledge there is no footage, as it's not recorded, I believe that the idea was to have someone monitor the screens !).

On another occasion I caught three young lads who were after breaking into a car, they got away but I dialed 999 on my mobile who put me through to the Gardai in Castlebar who said to me "We'ull send a patrol car round . . .", an hour later I got fed up waiting for the car to come 'all that way' from the police station on the Mall to the other end of town so I went home - as they had my mobile number and were free to contact me whenever they wanted - needless to say they never did. I managed to track down the owner of the car and explained to him what happenned - including the failure of the Gardai to turn up, he was shocked at that, I wasn't - not because I'm a cynic but because that's the reality of the policing situation in Castlebar.

I'm sure that there's plenty of others who've had similar experiences too, I can't speak for the Gardai (some of whom do a fine job) and perhaps they have valid reasons for not responding to reported crimes in a timely and organised fashion and it's not their fault but the fault of the 'management - senior officers & DOJ mandarins' for successive failures to implement systems which would have better enabled the man on the beat, in the patrol car, on the front desk, etc. to carry out their jobs better. As an example - it's a disgrace that the Gardai have a better chance of relaying messages back to base via there personal mobiles than through the Gardai radio net (plus they'd be more secure - GSM being harder to crack) !

P.S. Nice to 'see' a patrol car located at the AbraBridge flashpoint on Sat night - granted it won't stop the various hotheads from losing their cool but at least it makes other citizens feel more secure.