Cllr Michelle Murphy is organising a free crime awareness evening to be held tonight Thursday April 3 at 8pm in the Clybaun Hotel with a number of speakers who will share their experiences and issue practical tips on how to protect yourself and your property.
With the recent spate of burglaries and thefts around the City and particularly on the West side of the City Cllr. Murphy has said it is time to take action and equip the residents and businesses owners with information as to how they can better protect themselves and hopefully deter thieves targeting their belongings.
Many burglaries are opportunistic, and that is “amazing” the number of houses where doors and windows are not locked, windows are left open, and alarms and lights are not turned on, particularly in houses occupied by students which are often targeted for games/consoles.
Cllr Murphy stated that ‘the figures reported are telling us a story about a decrease in crime figures however it is difficult to believe that figures for the 12 months to Sept 2013 show that recorded crime fell by 7.1 on average across the country and reported burglaries were down by 5% in Galway city last year to 433 when there is constant burglary attempts being made right across the city. I have received numerous calls from constituents who have had attempted break-in and actual break-ins over the past number of weeks and they are living in fear constantly that this will happen again’. Reports form Central Statistics Office 2013 highlights significant variations in crime rates on a county basis so unfortunately the way the crime levels are rising in Galway it seems we will feature in the worst hit counties for 2014 unless we do something about it and take action immediately.
