No burglaries reported in two Limerick sub-districts reveals garda superintendent
TWO superintendents had good news for councillors at the first ‘in person’ Cappamore-Kilmallock Joint Police Sub-Committee meeting of 2021.
For the first and perhaps last time in his career, Roxboro Superintendent Dermot O’Connor said there had been no burglaries of houses in the Ballyneety and Caherconlish sub-districts since the start of the year. This was compared to 12 in the same timeframe in 2020.
Opening his presentation, Supt O’Connor said crime figures are good.
Property crime was down from 28 in 2020 to 21 in 2021. Public order remained low with only one incident this year and last year. Thefts were slightly up – 16 compared to 20 this year. Crimes against the person remained the same – seven last year and this year.
Supt O’Connor said there was an increase in the number of road traffic collisions which reflected the busier roads – 20 in 2020 and 30 this year (29 of which were material damage). Seven drivers were arrested for drink driving and four for drug driving to date in 2021. There were zero arrests for drug driving in 2020.
In summing up, Supt O’Connor said: “There was good proactive policing, searches, checkpoints and enforcing Covid regulations.”
His counterpart in Bruff, Supt John Ryan could also give councillors good news in relation to crime in their area face to face.
Burglaries dropped from 33 in 2020 to 21 in 2021 however he noted, “In the last week or two crime is on an slight increase”.
Assaults were down from 26 last year to 16 this year. One area Supt Ryan highlighted was fraud which has jumped from 23 in 2020 to 28 so far this year.
“There is a huge increase in fraud and online crime nationally. If it sounds too good to be true then it probably is. Do not give a person that you don’t know any personal information,” stressed Supt Ryan.
Thefts from shops were up 78%. Thefts from cars down 30%.
“There was a 50% increase in arrests for the possession of drugs for sale or supply,” said Supt Ryan, who put in place a dedicated drugs unit for the first time in the history of Bruff Garda District.
There was also an increase in drug driving detections from zero last year to six this year. Traffic collisions rose from 64 to 72 with no fatal accidents.
Councillors welcomed the statistics from Supt O’Connor and Supt Ryan. Cllr Mike Donegan said he had received representations from the Step Forward disability awareness group in Hospital.
He asked for action over cars parked on footpaths which block wheelchair users, vision impaired people and parents pushing buggies and force them out on the road.
Cllr Ger Mitchell praised the increase in drug driving detections. Cllr Brigid Teefy highlighted the level of scams. “There are phone calls, emails, texts now. They have become very sophisticated,” said Cllr Teefy.
Councillors also brought up the level of dumping in rural areas and bemoaned the difficulties around using cameras to catch them. Supt Ryan asked councillors for a list of blackspots for gardai to focus on.