News
Text alert scheme will help tackle crime around the county
Text alert schemes will be rolled out across County Galway in the coming months to help combat rural crime. Galway and Ballinasloe Garda Districts have already established text alert schemes and Tuam, Salthill, Gort, Clifden and Loughrea districts are in the process of setting them up, too.
The text alert schemes beef up the Garda’s intelligence gathering of crime. They will complement the work of Neighbourhood Watch schemes, in urban areas, and Community Alert Schemes, which are run in rural areas in conjunction with Muintir na Tíre and the Irish Famers Association.
Inspector Mick O’Dwyer, who heads up Community Alert in the Tuam Garda District, has confirmed to The Connacht Tribune that text alerts in all Galway Garda Districts will be up and running within months.
The text alert schemes aim to bring communities together to identify suspicious activity or vehicles in an area.
Working with Gardaí, the community uses mobile phones to monitor suspicious activity in an area in an effort to reduce rural crime, such as burglaries. Gardaí will also use texts to alert community of crime prevention measures, or to ask them to keep an eye out for things, for example, if they are looking for a particular vehicle in an area.
There will be a designated text recipient in each Community Alert scheme that is signed up to text alert.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.