Gardaí seek to put drunken people off streets earlier
Sean McMahon
A senior garda for this region has said that gardaí will object strongly to applications for bar extensions in the courts as they are struggling to deal with drunken behaviour on the streets after hours.
Superintendent Jimmy Coen made the comments at the last meeting of the Joint Policing Committee (JPC) in Cavan Town.
He remarked that a trend of drinking at home before going out meant a lot of already irrational people were going into pubs. “Those premises are putting them back out on the streets – that is where a lot of assaults are caused – then it is the gardaí who have to deal with it,” he said.
Supt Coen made the comments as the crime figures for the final quarter of 2018 were finalised. They showed that there were 108 public order offences detected in the final quarter of 2018 in the Cavan District, compared to 83 in the last quarter of 2017 - this represents a 30% rise. In the Bailieboro District, public order offence detections were down by two to 36 in the last three months of 2018.
Taxi drivers afraid
Responding to Cllr Peter McVitty, the garda chief said that he was aware of taxi drivers who won’t work at night because of the abuse they face.
Supt Coen added that they will be objecting in the strongest possible terms to bar extensions at busy times like Christmas when there is no structure in place to get people home.
“If that continues, then it will be brought to the attention of the district court and we will be saying - how do you expect 300 or 400 people to get home?”
Cllr McVitty said: “I honestly believe that there is too much late night drinking. I know you can’t change that; that is the law that is there – I understand that. There are extensions given, then there are extensions of extensions,” he remarked.
Supt Coen said that the problem is not exclusive to weekends despite a lot of people being around on Saturday nights.
He explained that there are public order hot spots and he said that it is not exceptional to have public order incidents on week day nights at 11pm or at 8pm in the evening.