Major Garda plan to oversee Donegal Rally

Gardai will contribute 8,000 man hours to police the Donegal International Rally this weekend.

Around 200 Gardai will be on duty through the roll out of a major policing plan.

Around 70,000 rally fans are expected to converge on Donegal to see the only three-day tarmac rally remaining in Ireland or the UK and a rally regarded as being among the most popular in Europe.

A major emergency management team from Galway is being drafted in by An Garda Siochana and an extra Garda communications team will also be deployed to Donegal for the weekend.

Chief Superintendent Aidan Glacken told a meeting of the Donegal Joint Policing Committee (JPC) on Friday that the rally and the Sea Sessions festival in Bundoran, which runs Friday-Sunday at Tullan Strand, would be a 'substantial drain on resources' within the force.

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The Garda Air Support Unit will be in Donegal while officers from Milford, Ballyshannon and Donegal Town will look after policing the stages and the travel between stages.

In a change to recent tradition, Friday's stages and service of the rally will be in south Donegal before the crews return to the Letterkenny-Milford areas on the second and third days.

Garda chiefs have met with representatives from Rally Ireland and the Donegal Motor Club and Chief Superintendent Glacken commended the 'focus on safety' of the motorsport authorities.

Chief Superintendent Glacken told Friday's meeting that 200 Gardai would be deployed every day and would, over the course of the weekend, contribute 'just short of 8,000 man hours'.

“This will come at a substantial cost and we also have to manage other events in the Garda Division,” he said “It is a substantial draw on our resources.”

From a Gardai operational point of view, he said the focus was on three phases: Traffic management, public order policing; and prisoner management.

A meeting of the various stakeholders in the rally took place in Letterkenny on Friday afternoon with the countdown firmly on.

While the first stage is on Friday, the event gets underway with a ceremonial start on Thursday evening in Letterkenny.

JPC members Councillors Barry Sweeney and Michael Naughton welcomed the impending arrival of the rally through Barnesmore Gap, which would bring an economic boost to the area.

James Trearty, a retired Garda sergeant who is on the JPC, said he hoped An Garda Siochana would give adequate support to the Donegal Motor Club. He queried the number of convictions for dangerous driving have been recorded during the event.

“There is a lot of skulduggery and there is a legacy of serious accidents,” Mr Trearty said. “These people come in even when the rally is not on and they carry out some absolutely terrible acts. I have witnessed it myself.”

Councillor Donal Coyle said it was important to point out that the Motor Club had 'no hand act or part in the diffing', but said that diffing 'is a sport for a lot of young people'.

“This is, for them, their weekend for their sport too,” Councillor Coyle said, “but there are locations where this takes place, especially in areas where people live nearby, where families are being discommoded.”

Councillor Naughton described as 'unbelievable' the amount of complaints regarding diffing events he has heard. “How businesses allow that on a premiss is beyond belief,” he said.

Chief Superintendent Glacken told the meeting: “Where there are breaches of the Road Traffic Act, they will be dealt with.”