On January 20th our community Gardai held a clinic in the Community Centre at St Brigid’s school. They were available to meet 1:1 with neighbours to discuss issues and concerns.

Ruth Hogan and I took the opportunity to meet with them to discuss the higher activity levels that we have seen – particularly in the last 12 months. Above you will see a chart of activity in just our own Neighbourhood Watch area over the last 10 years. This comes from our own message logs on WhatsApp – rather than from official Garda statistics.

In 2024 we saw an increase in cars being interfered with in the area and we can see this trend continued in 2025 with more serious incidents including car thefts and a number of break-ins. In the context of most districts in the K District, this remains a low level of activity – but for each neighbour that has been impacted, each incident is disturbing.

We shared our concerns with our Community Gardai and they acknowledged that there appear to be a number of groups operating in the area on scooters, targeting open cars, front doors and also fishing for keys through letterboxes. They have had some success and a couple of groups are before the courts, but there are other groups still active.

We acknowledged the support that we do receive in the aftermath of an incident but inquired about the ability to increase the level of patrols in the area. This comes down to the availability of resources in the area. On a given night there is often a shortage of cars available, with more serious crimes having to be triaged or on occasion getting support from Cabra or Finglas.

Key advise from the team was as follows:

• Log calls to 999 rather than the station – these are logged and triaged based
• Log all crime incidents – no matter how small – crime statistics drive resources
• Keep vehicles locked
• Keep keys well away from doors and letterboxes

We advised that following our NW coordinators meeting in December, we would be writing to Garda management and local representatives in the area to request additional resources for Blanchardstown. We stressed that this was to support their efforts and this was acknowledged.

We also suggested a meeting in the area on crime prevention in the coming months and will follow up with them on this.

We will keep you updated. Thanks for your continued support.