Chief superintendent’s warning of rising criminality in Limerick before Christmas

COVID-19 had presented some very strong challenges to the gardai, Chief Superintendent Gerard Roche said, when he addressed a meeting of the Newcastle West Joint Policing Committee.

Limerick had been one of the first in the country to bring in the Community Response Team he said and that had worked very, very well.

With travel restricted, and people working from home, there had been reduced crime rates, he said, but he expected that to change as society opens up and warned that burglaries could rise in the run-up to Christmas.

Operation Thor, which targets and monitors persistent criminals, was continuing, Chief Superintendent Roche said.

“Over the past 12 months, over 80% of our top targets have been arrested,” he said. But, he added, there were also travelling criminals and they also had to be targeted.

Superintendent Aileen Magner, who heads up the Newcastle West Garda Division, told councillors that crime levels had fallen across virtually all categories. Burglaries were down 44% in Newcastle West and 23% in Abbeyfeale, and property crimes were also down overall by 18%.

There had been a slight increase of five incidents in thefts from shops, Superintendent Magner said, but thefts from vehicles were down by 27% “This is very welcome, she said. “A lot of this type of crime takes place in scenic areas. Particularly now with the Greenway, we don’t want targeting of those areas.”

But she cautioned people to continue to be vigilant and not to leave their vehicles unlocked.

There was a significant drop in crimes against the person (down 30%) and in assaults, she told councillors. Serious assaults were down 22% in Newcastle west and 54% in Abbeyfeale. Section 3 assaults which were more minor were down 50% in Abbeyfeale but remained the same in Newcastle West.

Drugs are very much on our radar, the superintendent said, and there was now a dedicated drugs unit operating throughout the county.

There had been eight detentions for sale or supply and 35 detentions for simple possession.

Detective Sergeant Mike Reidy said there had been a big increase in fraud crime, something which was replicated all around the country, where sophisticated operators and orchestrators, often posing as banks or delivery companies, were emailing, phoning or texting people, looking for them to click on a link or to give personal details.

Only recently, he told councillors, a six-figure sum fraud had been averted at the last minute where a company was told that bank details for a transfer had changed and given new details. Criminals were adopting new methods, he warned, and the gardai also had to adopt new methods.

A number of detectives in the county are now fully trained in CAB profiling, Det Sgt Reidy continued, and there were up to 15 people being investigated at the present time.

“It is time-consuming,” he said. It involves putting pieces together like a jigsaw and building up the big picture.

The community bus which travels to villages and towns is continuing and the plan is to roll out clinics in the new year.

A property-marking initiative, which would help in the detection of burglaries, would also be rolled out in the near future.