Rural crime meeting held in Athy

Emotions were running high at last nights meeting on rural crime in St Laurences, according to Kildare South TD Fiona McLoughlin.

"People have a right to feel safe and secure in their own home, and sadly in many instances they don’t," she said.

Inspector Martin Walker and his team work very well with the local Community alert teams and that partnership is vital.

"The issue here is resources and lack of Gardai.  We have the lowest number of Gardai per head of population in the country- with motorways accessing all our rural communities.  We must have CCTV monitoring all our access points to the motorway, and ensure that we have the necessary number of Gardai, who are working with the Community to tackle crime, and the proper legislation in place to deal with these criminals."

She added that the installation of  CCTV at motorway exit points should be considered to catch criminals using the motorway network