CRIME LEVELS FALL BUT BURGLARIES RISE IN CITY

Date Published: 06-Oct-2009

Crime levels for Galway city have dropped in the first nine months of this year. The latest crime figures show drop of 6 per cent in crime levels but a sharp rise of 19 per cent in the number of burglaries being carried out. This week's joint city policing committee was told that the criminals leave Dublin at 9 in the morning, drive over on the new motorway and carry out up to 6 burglaries within an hour or so. Housing estates in the East of the city in particular are being targetted by Dublin-based criminal gangs according to Superintendent Tom Curley. Superintendent Curley also said a large number of ex-army Eastern Europeans are travelling by bus to Galway in the evening and spend the night robbing premises. Gardai are now setting up checkpoints of buses across the Shannon and have made a number of arrests in the last two weeks.