Dismay at Bawnboy Station u-turn

A local TD says, if re-elected, he will look to have the newly installed Minister for Justice correct the Dáil record after it emerged there has been a complete u-turn on a long-standing commitment to reopen Bawnboy Garda Station.

Cavan-Monaghan Fianna Fáil TD Brendan Smith is accusing Minister for Justice Helen McEntee of not disclosing, when asked directly, that Bawnboy station will not now reopen. This, he says, is despite government departments having the information for over six months.

He will also demand that the parties leading the next government follow through on established commitments to rural policing by reopening the former west Cavan barracks.

“It’s not acceptable,” Deputy Smith told The Anglo-Celt this week, when the information came to light after this newspaper requested an up-to-date position on the reopening.

“I was never given a clear answer that Bawnboy Garda Station would never reopen.”

According to the Office of Public Works, An Garda Siocháná advised the agency as far back as April 17 that the Bawnboy station was “no longer required” for operational purposes.

Bawnboy was among 139 stations closed nationwide between 2012 and 2013. The post-recession cost-cutting measures also saw stations in Newbliss, Corrinshigo, Redhills and Shantonagh shuttered across the Cavan-Monaghan Division.

But four years later (2017) Bawnboy was among six selected to reopen. Today it remains as one of just two still closed, though the position in relation to Leighlinbridge Garda Station, Minister Helen McEntee said, is being kept ‘under review’. It was not included on a recently published list of former Garda Stations closed under the 2012-13 Policing Plans being prepared for disposal or alternative use.

There are currently 46 vacant garda properties managed by the OPW, 13 currently under consideration or in the process of being transferred to local authorities or to other State bodies. Bawnboy station is the only Cavan property listed.

In line with the OPW’s “disposals policy”, Bawnboy Garda Station is being “assessed to see if it is required/suitable for alternative State use”. If no such use is identified for the property, “it will be disposed of on the open market”.

There was no mention of this decision in a reply from Minister Helen McEntee when asked for an update by Deputy Brendan Smith only last September.

Her response instead detailed only that Bawnboy Garda Station “remains closed”, and that: “Since 18 March 2024, an additional number of gardaí have been assigned to the west Cavan area, which comprises Ballyconnell, Belturbet, Dowra, Swanlinbar and Blacklion. This assignment ensures the provision of a 24-hour policing service to West Cavan which includes the Bawnboy area.”

When asked for clarification, a spokesperson for the Department for Justice informed the Celt that Minister McEntee’s “reply to Deputy Smith’s PQ accurately reflects the position in relation to Bawnboy station. The answer clearly states that the station is closed and sets out the arrangements in place for the policing of County Cavan”.

Deputy Smith had asked for an update in relation to the property in February and March of this year.

He also raised the situation regarding the Bawnboy station with now Taoiseach Simon Harris when he held the Justice portfolio briefly in 2023, and before that, in 2022, when Minister McEntee said the reopening was still “being considered”.

An investment of €250,000, if not more, was reportedly required to bring the current Bawnboy Garda Station up to modern-day standards with the necessary works expected to take around three months to complete. Those plans were complicated after “technical surveys” identified asbestos in one portion of the property, which then had to be removed.

Doubt was cast on any potential reopening by Garda Commissioner Drew Harris on a visit to Cavan as far back as October 2021, when he hinted at concerns over the proposed reopening, remarking that “a business case” would be required.

“What I would like to know is who has made this decision?” asked Deputy Smith.

“And was that proposal sanctioned by the Minister for Justice? Consistently in Dáil Eireann, with a number of people who have held the office over the years, I have raised the issue of Bawnboy station.”

Deputy Smith also took a swipe at the new Garda operational structure for the region where it is now merged with neighbouring Louth.

A “travesty” is how he described it.

“Now we have a division stretching from Dowra and Blacklion to literally outside Dublin City outside Drogheda, with a Chief Superintendent for our entire district based in Drogheda. I strenuously objected to that at the time,” fumes Deputy Smith.

On Bawnboy he concludes: “You had a relatively modern garda station which, with some minor upgrading, could have been reopened, and again I cannot emphasise enough it is far better for society when we have our gardaí based in our communities.”