LIMERICK this past week got three new community policing sergeants to be based in the Limerick City Centre and City North areas.
Sergeant Rosaleen O’Connor, Sergeant Michael Gallagher, and Sergeant Aoife Bannon will all be permanently based in community policing the Limerick City North Community Engagement Area.
Sergeant O’Connor will be based in Henry Street Garda Station and will have responsibility for the Schools Programme, as well as equality, diversity, and inclusion initiatives.
Sergeant Gallagher will be based at Mayorstone Garda Station and will cover the northside estates and the historical quarter.
Sergeant Bannon will join Sergeant O’Connor in Henry Street and have responsibility for harm reduction in the City Centre, as well as acting as third-level education liaison.
Sergeant Bannon’s will oversee the implementation of Limerick’s first harm reduction strategy, which will involve communication with business owners in the city, as well as outreach services to deal with homelessness and addiction issues in the city centre.
Superintendent Andrew Lacey said that the harm reduction strategy will aim to take a person-focused approach, rather than applying the law.
“It’s multi-agency based,” Superintendent Lacey told the Limerick Post. “We work really well with the council, the HSE, and homeless services and volunteers like Novas and the Ana Liffey Project.”
“All these things are kind of new, progressive, innovative ways of trying to deal with things. It’s not just the straightforward prosecution enforcement.”
Supt Lacey said the harm reduction strategy “is a shift in the way policing has gone” over the last decade, adding that “addiction, heroin, and crack cocaine are all evident here in Limerick”.
He said that, in terms of a policing approach, Gardaí in Limerick “learned lessons over time, the recidivism that we see in terms of prosecutions, people coming back out (of prison), it doesn’t always work. So you have to approach it from various different aspects. That’s what the harm reduction strategy does”.
Sergeant Aoife Bannon told the Limerick Post that her new role will give her “a better opportunity to engage with the people living within our communities and those with issues that people are facing in those communities”.
“Limerick is a big city, it’s a fabulous city here. It’s got its challenges, we’re aware of that. And it’s something that we’re going to really try and get on top of and try to bring the positives out,” she said.
Sgt Bannon was promoted to the rank of sergeant two years ago and has been a member of An Garda Síochána for the past eight years.
She says that as part of her new role, she will be out getting to know the communities around Limerick.
“If I can just get out and get to know my communities here – and even they get to know me and we have a face of the organisation behind the name – then I’d have achieved something”.
