The Garda Representative Association yesterday refused to rule out the possibility of some of its members in west Cork taking strike action to highlight their safety concerns after a local Garda station was petrol bombed.
West Cork GRA representative Pat O'Sullivan said their members in Dunmanway were concerned about their safety after the station was damaged late on Tuesday night.
Nobody was injured when a petrol bomb was thrown against the back door.
The station has been in a three-bedroom house in the main street since 2003 when gardaí refused to work in the original station because of rat infestation.
"The present building is totally unsuitable to serve as a Garda station - it's an ordinary house - there are no cells and there's no proper facilities to interview people," said Mr O'Sullivan.
He added that the GRA have been campaigning for a new Garda station for Dunmanway since 1981.
Mr O'Sullivan said the lack of a proper Garda station was hindering the policing of the town as there are insufficient facilities to accommodate any increase in the current complement of four gardaí and a sergeant which the town needs.
It also meant that when there are public order incidents and someone is arrested, gardaí have to take them to Clonakilty, some 24km (15 miles) away, to process them rather than dealing with them locally and then returning to prevent any further public order incidents.
"I would have to question the Minister for Justice's commitment to rural policing when you see the conditions that these gardaí have to work in," said Mr O'Sullivan.
He added that local public representatives had also failed to deliver on a long promised new station. Mr O'Sullivan claimed that public order incidents in the town had increased with a number of individuals barred from pubs in other west Cork towns converging on Dunmanway because they know gardaí there are under-resourced.
He said two members of the force had to retire on medical grounds following an incident while on patrol in December 2003, while since then two other gardaí have been injured in public order incidents in the area.
An Office of Public Works spokesman said it was finalising legal details with owners of properties adjacent to the old Garda station to purchase those properties and allow the old station to be refurbished and expanded.
