Each housing estate in Letterkenny is to be assigned a designated community policing officer through a new initiative announced by Superintendent Vincent O'Brien this week.

Speaking at this week's public meeting of the Joint Policing Committee in Letterkenny, the Superintendent explained: "It is my intention to assign one guard to each housing estate in Letterkenny. The idea behind this is for the guard to get to know the estate, and get to know the people living in the estate so that any problems the residents have can be relayed back to us through the community garda."

"This reinforces the fact that it is very important for gardai to keep in touch with members of the public."

His plans, however, were met with some scepticism by one member of the public at the meeting who commented: "The gardai simply do not have the resources to police every housing estate in the town bearing in mind that there are over 5,000 houses."

He continued: "I came to Letterkenny as a blow-in in the seventies and in this year of 2007, the town has boomed beyond all belief. Letterkenny is in the process of becoming a city and within that city you can now see satellite towns emerging; areas like Glencar and Ballyboe."

Superintendent O'Brien commented: "In my opinion, every guard should be a community police person. Every guard is involved deeply within the community organisation simply by living in the community."

"While it is my hope that each guard will take ownership of an estate you are right in saying that we don't have the resources to have a guard permanently standing in each estate. But community policing is one of the Commissioner's goals in this year's policing plan and this will hopefully result in us being able to have more of a presence in these housing estates."

'EVASIVE'

While the Superintendent was accused of being evasive in regard to the number of gardai available to him in Letterkenny, he replied: "I have restrictions placed on me and I am not allowed to discuss specific numbers for operational reasons. What I can say, however, is that in a general way, I do not know of any Superintendent who does not want more resources. And you always have to fight for resources."

He added: "Now is the time over the next few months to stress the need for more resources to politicians."

Mayor of Letterkenny, Cllr Ciaran Brogan stated: "In looking at the question of community policing we need to ask ourselves why this committee was set up. And the answer is in order to work closely with the community and ensure a safer environment for everyone in the Letterkenny area."