From this week’s Galway City Tribune – A major operation to increase garda visibility in the city centre is being planned for this Winter as Galway’s reputation as a safe city is threatened by serious assaults that have gone viral on social media.

The push for more patrols on the streets comes as gardaí confirmed that assaults causing harm have increased by 40% in the city in the first nine months of this year.

Superintendent Damien Flanagan vowed that more garda resources would be deployed to assault hotspots in the city centre in the coming weeks and lead-up to Christmas to put a lid on public order offences and serious assaults.

Supt Flanagan conceded that the move would result in fewer gardaí available for other duties. But he insisted that more gardaí on the beat was needed to deter and detect serious assaults.  His reassurances at a Galway City Joint Policing Committee (JPC) this week were followed by a claim that Salthill Garda Station has lost ten gardaí – including a team of four detectives.

Supt Flanagan said that Eyre Square had a major problem with anti-social behaviour incidents earlier this year but that had reduced after gardaí kept a 24-hours a day, seven days a week presence there.

The trouble had now shifted further down the city centre, he said, to the Cross Street, Bridge Street and Quay Street areas.

A policing plan to increase the number of gardaí on the beat in those areas would be implemented in the lead-up to Christmas, Supt Flanagan said.

He was responding to claims at the JPC meeting that many residents and visitors to the city were fearful of being attacked after a number of high-profile incidents that have gone viral on social media.

(Images: video footage of an assault on Cross Street and the junction with Bridge Street two weekends ago went viral on social media. Arrests were made).
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