Career criminals who repeatedly commit burglaries should get ten-year minimum sentences, according to one local councillor.
Fianna Fáil county councillor, Mary Hoade, has written to the Minister for Justice, Helen McEntee, asking her to provide more gardaí for rural Ireland.
In her letter, she stated that nearly half of all new gardaí in the last five years have been stationed in Dublin, while only 73 of 3,781 new gardaí have been sent to stations in Galway in the last five years.
Cllr Hoade also called a recent rise in burglaries “sickening”, and cited a case last week in Headford, where a 99-year-old woman living alone was targeted.
“I have spoken to so many people who are fearful in their own homes and it is genuinely affecting their quality of lives,” she wrote. “They are not sleeping well, any sound at night frightens them, they are afraid to open their door at any time.”
