A new Local Policing Partnership between the Gardai and Kilkenny County Council has launched in Castlecomer.
Chief Superintendent Dominic Hayes last evening unveiled the new body for the Municipal District with gardaí, local interest groups, elected representatives and members from the relevant Text Alert areas in attendance.
Inspector Anthony Farrell has been telling KCLR News “Community policing continues to be a core focus of An Garda Siochana effort and as part of our ongoing commitment to our communities & in effort to improve the quality of life for people & enhance feelings of safety in the community we’re launching, in association with Kilkenny local authority, a local policing partnership in Castlecomer”.
He added that “There’s already a very strong relationship with the community & with local elected representatives so it’s an ideal platform for us to pilot this particular initiative in Kilkenny Carlow Division. Hopefully based on the learnings from this we look at rolling it out in Piltown, Bagenalstown & also Tullow”.
Inspector Farrell noted “This is a platform for us to listen to the community and it’s going to be driven commuynity & by the needs of the community so we’re not certainly going to set the agenda from our side and be prescriptive and it’s important for us to hear what the community are asking for and certainly try to learn from that and put necessary measures or actions in place to help support our community”.
And he concluded by saying “In terms of structure from the garda siochana side it’s going to be led by an Inspector which is Paul Donoghue, Paul is very familiar to Castlecomer, he served there as a Sergeant, he’ll be supported by the Sergeant in Charge there Laura Dragoi, and we’ll also have representatives from the community policing side, from the operations side, traffic & detective branch”.
