I raise the issue of rural crime in my constituency of Tipperary. Unfortunately, rural crime is starting to increase. There have been a number of highly publicised incidents in the southern part of my constituency. The weekend before last, a constituent of mine noticed suspicious behaviour in her area and rang a Garda station that is supposed to be manned 24 hours a day. Unfortunately, her phone calls were not answered. We have no chief superintendent in our county. For a county the size of Tipperary not to have a chief superintendent is absolutely ridiculous. We are now seeing the impact of the lack of resources because we do not have someone to voice our concerns to the Garda Commissioner. We are most definitely feeling the impact of the lack of a chief superintendent in our county. I urge the Taoiseach to talk to the Commissioner and to ask him to revisit the decision to take a chief superintendent out of our county. We have a very large county that runs all the way from Lorrha to Carrick-on-Suir. The lack of a chief superintendent is highlighting itself in the context of the scarcity of Garda resources in our county.

The Government is committed to building safer and stronger communities across Ireland. For that reason, we allocated funding in the budget to recruit 1,000 gardaí this year. We believe this will be more than enough to cover retirements and resignations. The deployment of gardaí and the location of senior gardaí is a matter for the Garda Commissioner rather than the Government, which is as it should be. However, I will mention this issue to the Garda Commissioner the next time I see him. I do see him quite regularly.

With regard to Tipperary in general, there is an issue with the building project at Clonmel Garda station being delayed because it is part of a public private partnership, PPP, project. That is an issue of concern to Deputy Cahill and also to Senator Ahearn and Deputy Lowry. That is something we are working on. The development is tied up with a PPP project. We are examining whether we can separate it out and get work at the new Garda stations in Clonmel and Macroom under way as soon as possible.