Cavan County Council have requested a meeting with the Garda Commissioner to discuss plans to amalgamate Cavan, Monaghan and Louth Garda Divisions into one.
Fianna Fail Councillor John Paul Feeley raised the issue at the latest Cavan County Council meeting and called on the Commissioner "to reverse the decision" to join the three units. He also requested the Minister for Justice to "properly resource" An Garda Síochána. Speaking to Northern Sound, John Paul Feeley said the area from the Cooley Mountains in Louth, to Dowra in Cavan is a "vast" area to police effectively from a central headquarters.
He said he also objects to the Commissioner's proposal because of the way resources for three divisions would be distributed. "We've seen in the western part of County Cavan the removal of the superintendent from Ballyconnell and we've seen the way that has affected resources on the ground, even at that small scale," Cllr Feeley said, "When that is applied across a vast three-county division from Blacklion, from Dowra over to the Cooley Peninsula and practically into County Dublin, you have very different policing issues and we've seen the way it has affected policing at the level so you can extrapolate from that what it's going to look like when they put the three counties together."
