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Community anger over Station night closure

Sean McMahon 
in Ballyconnell

 

As elderly citizens live in fear and robberies seemingly continue unabated - with the latest including break-ins of cars parked at two local churches - the Ballyconnell community has woken to the mounting challenge facing them following the decision to shut the local garda station at night.

Some locals are so shocked and angered by the move to close the station without consultation, that they say if it is not restored to a 24-hour facility, they will consider forming a ‘Local Community Protection Group’.

They would aim to take ownership of community safety like that of a similar group reportedly run with great success in the Swanlinbar area. Ballyconnell Station - which was previously a district headquarters - has, since Wednesday, August 2, closed during the hours of 9pm and 9am.

An impromptu gathering of people from the town and surrounding area descended on Ballyconnell Station last Saturday morning with a view to signalling their intent to stage a monster rally in the Community Centre on Monday, September 11 at 8pm. Invited to the meeting will be Garda top brass including Superintendent James Coen, as well as local Dail Deputies.

There was unanimous support for the staging of a major rally amongst those present.

The Chairman of the Local Community Alert group, Gary McKiernan, said the group will be seeking answers at the upcoming meeting about who made the decision and why it was done without any consultation.

They will also be demanding the decision be overturned and the Station returned to its former 24-hour status.

He told the gathering that Ballyconnell Station is right on the border and there is a huge area to be covered from Cavan town to Blacklion.

“I have emailed TDs, Superintendents, Chief Superintendents and to date I have got zero response,” Mr McKiernan said, adding that it was nonsense having one garda out in a patrol car at night, when he can’t go to a crime scene on his own and has to call for assistance from Cavan.

He stated too that Gardai would be better in the Station with the lights on, where those intent on crime would see activity and hopefully be deterred.

“We are on the border and Brexit is looming and this closure of the station is just not good enough,” said Mr McKiernan.

Meanwhile, The Anglo-Celt has learned that when there are two gardai on duty, one could occasionally be called back to Cavan Station.

The group has already held a brief meeting in the Community Centre to elect an action committee from every strand of the community and business with a view to organising the rally, as well as to formulate plans to organise a petition.

They also plan to write to the Garda Commissioner Noirin O’Sullivan and the Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan to seek their intervention.

An elderly lady living on her own, who did not wish to be named, told The Anglo-Celt she called the gardai some months ago as she feared that there were raiders in her home in the middle of the night, after she heard a noise. Eventually 90 minutes later she summoned up the courage to check around the house herself and rang back the gardai in Ballyconnell to cancel the call-out.

“The garda informed me that a Garda was close to my home at that stage – he had to travel down from Blacklion to Ballyconnell in the patrol car,” the woman said.

When asked what she thinks of the Garda Station being closed at night time, this lady said “it is very frightening – I just don’t understand it. We are on the border and we have all sorts of things going on in relation to Brexit”.

Tony Connolly, a local historian said the gardai came to town on the June 28, 1923 and Sgt Rock and three guards got off the train with their bikes and suitcases and walked up the town to the local Post Office, which was being used until the old RIC barracks was reconstructed on the Main Street. “There has been a 24 hour presence in the Ballyconnell Station from then until now,” he said.

“The movement of Gardai to the town then came about as a result of what became known as the Sack of Ballyconnell. Irregulars from Arigna had come into town and raided the Post Office and a hardware shop. They got caught in cross fire in the hardware shop and one man was killed. A month later around 50 of them came back and took over the town and shot two people dead and another man was injured.”