How would you change policing in Galway?

snubbleste

They made the point that those being ticketed will say "why aren't you out catching dealers and paedophiles etc"..
But parking is a huge issue, anyone who has a licence to drive knows it is illegal to park on a footpath, double yellow line at all times! It's just not being enforced enough.
They did say that they had clamped down on boyracers and cases were being brought to court as a previous poster pointed out but not enough. The excuses of 'limited garda resources' came up.
Also it emerged that no ASBOs have been served as of yet in Galway but a number of cautions before the granting of an ASBO have been given out.

cornbb

snubbleste wrote: »

They made the point that those being ticketed will say "why aren't you out catching dealers and paedophiles etc"..
But parking is a huge issue, anyone who has a licence to drive knows it is illegal to park on a footpath, double yellow line at all times! It's just not being enforced enough.
They did say that they had clamped down on boyracers and cases were being brought to court as a previous poster pointed out but not enough. The excuses of 'limited garda resources' came up.
Also it emerged that no ASBOs have been served as of yet in Galway but a number of cautions before the granting of an ASBO have been given out.

No wonder "resources are limited" when they feel the need to commit 3 Gardai to writing tickets to taxi drivers on Cross street! When I say 3 Gardai writing tickets, I mean one Garda writing tickets and the others leaning against a wall and watching him. This is what I've witnessed anyway.

Illegal parking and wrong and no-one likes it but surely this is what traffic wardens should be spending their time at, not Gardai? Wouldn't they be better off going after dangerous drivers, as opposed to drivers who cause a wee bit of inconvenience?

galway008

Did they really need to have a meeting to discover whats wrong.

This is just a pure talking shop paying lip service to the public that turned up and the councillors. I'm sure they went back to the station and had a good laugh about it.

snubbleste

It was a bit of a talking shop, but the Garda and the executive in the Council are'nt really answerable to the public.
At least this meeting showed the frustration that exists with the lack of enforcement of existing laws in relation to certain issues in Galway and try to make the local Garda explain why they choose not to enforce laws.

I'm pretty sure the Garda took the meeting seriously, just by being there and the answers that were given.

Derek_N

I was at the meeting. I thought the public turn out was quite poor, especially given how regularly people voice their dissatisfaction with crime etc. I'd say about 30 people max.

That said, I think its a really good idea - and those at the "top table" - councillors, city officials but especially Gardai did seem to be taking it seriously.

snubbleste

snubbleste wrote: »

I went to this meeting last night, it was a bit of a talking shop tbh, could have been better structured. However it was great to see the Garda being challenged by councillors and a few members of the public in relation to the non-enforcement of some vexing issues, namely:
begging on the streets, anti-social behaviour in council/non-council houses especially those with absentee landlords, the non-visibility of the local community garda, boyracers and loud exhausts, lack of speedchecks and illegal parking.

I'm dragging this thread up to see if the first public policing meeting held last May had any effect.
Have people noticed less beggars, less boy-racers, less noisy exhausts, more speedchecks, more garda visibility and more parking tickets being issued?

kayos

snubbleste wrote: »

I'm dragging this thread up to see if the first public policing meeting held last May had any effect.
Have people noticed less beggars, less boy-racers, less noisy exhausts, more speedchecks, more garda visibility and more parking tickets being issued?

Boy-racers i.e. twats driving far too fast and stupidly they are still there. I’ve not been near the Galway shopping centre at night in months so I don’t know if they have stopped them gathering there.

Loud Exhausts i.e. Well above acceptable levels when driven at normal speed they are still 10 a penny. There is some car around my area (black Honda civic in case you could not guess) and I swear some day I’ll catch him and stick his down pipe of and exhaust up his out pipe!

Beggars? Never really had a problem with them much in Galway but they do seem to have become a more rare sight.

Speed Checks? Seems to be more of them but they all seem to be of the shooting fish in the barrel type. Would prefer to see them on the smaller roads where its just stupid to break the limits rather than the roads where its straight, flat, wide and a dual carriage way.

I would love to see more random check points in Galway I honestly have not seen one in about 4 years.

As for cops on patrol lol you are kidding right? Only time I see cops on foot is when they are walking from the car to the station or visa versa

There does seem to be a lot more undercover cars snooping around the place alright. A couple of times now in the past month myself or the OH have seen cars pulled on the western D road by an unmarked car. The last one we saw the cop had a glove on and was going through the guys jacket on the bonnet of the car. Can only guess that was looking for drugs…

Mrs OBumble

kayos wrote: »

Beggars? Never really had a problem with them much in Galway but they do seem to have become a more rare sight.

My impression is that there are more of them than at this time last year, but that could just be because I'm around the town more during the day.

I always give the Roma folks a cheery smile (along with a shaking head and "noooo") ... some of them have even got to remembering me!

Gardi seem to come out in bunches: a couple of weeks ago, they were all over the streets for a week, but now they've disappeared again.

cornbb

I've always wondered why Gardaí seem to be deployed in groups of 3 or 4. Surely they could work more efficiently if there were 2 gardai on the beat or in the squad car? Would probably be less craic that way though

KevR

kayos wrote: »

Loud Exhausts i.e. Well above acceptable levels when driven at normal speed they are still 10 a penny. There is some car around my area (black Honda civic in case you could not guess) and I swear some day I’ll catch him and stick his down pipe of and exhaust up his out pipe!

I think the problem the Gardai have with this is that there's nothing in the law which specifically states what is an acceptable level and what isn't. I heard of some cases which were thrown out by the judge because the law doesn't define it properly. To be fair, it's pretty much a no win situation for the Gardai in this case.

The government should just set a maximum acceptable noise level for car exhausts and make it illegal for car shops to sell exhausts which are louder than the maximum set level.

As it stands now it's not fair to allow people to go into a shop and legally buy an exhaust only to be pulled over and brought to court after installing it on their car. And it's a waste of Garda resources and a waste of the court's time as it stands.

ethernet

KevR wrote: »

... The government should just set a maximum acceptable noise level for car exhausts and make it illegal for car shops to sell exhausts which are louder than the maximum set level. ...

What happened with the EU legislation trying to ourlaw the noisy exhausts? IIRC, it was meant to come into force during the summer of last year but haven''t heard much about it since. Perfect time to go enforcing it coming up to the rally

Wompa1

I have been in Galway for every race week in the last 15 years or so and its gotten a bit better in the last couple of years with the barricades but with teh amount of drunk drivers during that week it would seem theres a blind eye..3 years ago there was f'k all Garda intervention during Race Week. When that Spar opened up near cross street people were buying crates of beer and drinking them on the street with the Garda Barracks right down the road. Didn't do much harm apart from the broken glass but still any other time of the year and they'd have you for doing that.