Guarded welcome for new opening hours at Garda station in Cork's fastest growing town   

Opening hours at the Garda station in Cork’s fastest-growing town have been announced.

Carrigaline Garda Station will be open for four additional fixed hours a week and a further two hours on two separate evenings, which will be d locally a week in advance, following a review. It will also open for three hours every second Sunday.

Yesterday’s announcement follows a year of concern expressed by residents of the town, which now has a population of almost 20,000, as well as local representatives. A public meeting on the issue was held last March.

In a statement issued by the Garda Press Office, a spokesperson said a review had been carried out in the Cork division, stating: “The station will now be operating within both fixed and flexible opening hours in order to provide further service to the community of the greater Carrigaline catchment area.”

The opening hours are every Tuesday and Thursday from 12pm to 2pm; two evenings a week, to be announced a week in advance, from 5pm to 7pm, and from 11am to 2pm every second Sunday.

“The Togher Garda Station is the nearest station providing a 24-hour service and can be visited by anyone in the area who may need to speak with gardaí outside of these opening hours,” said the spokesperson.

Guarded welcome

While Cork South Central TD Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire had a guarded welcome for the confirmation of the opening hours, the Sinn Féin representative said it was not nearly enough to adequately police a town the size of Carrigaline.

“The announcement of scheduled opening hours is welcome and long overdue,” said Mr Ó Laoghaire. “The fact is that we have not had scheduled opening hours in Carrigaline for some time now. For a town the size of Carrigaline, close to 20,000 people and more in the outlying areas, it isn’t good enough that people are expected to just take a chance. That’s not the fault of the gardaí in the station who are doing the absolute best that they can, but it is a problem with resourcing.

“So these new scheduled hours, while they aren’t anywhere near as long and extensive as we might like, it’s better to have hours that we can rely on than not to have any sense of when it will be open at all.

“This has come about as a result of pressure from public representatives, the community, and the media. Prior to this, we had been waiting for almost a year. So I’m glad that the pressure has led to a result.

“What we now need to see is more investment in the station, the most important thing is that there are Garda patrol cars out at night.

“It’s been clear for a long time now that the Garda resources available in Carrigaline do not match the population and its growth in the past 10 to 15 years.”