Report from the Neighbourhood Watch meeting at Blanchardstown Garda station on Monday 6th November 2017.
This meeting was attended by eight resident association groups from Carpenterstown and Castleknock areas.
Riverwood Residents Association was represented by Frank Lynch and Damien Carbery, committee members; also present was Alex McDermott, Community Garda, and Inspector Anthony Twomey chaired the meeting.
The following was reported to us:
- A small white van was seen driving suspiciously around the Riverwood & Luttrellstown area in the early hours of the morning. It turned out to be a new milkman on his rounds.
- There is an increase in the theft of bikes. Gardai have advised residents to take a photo of the bicycle and record serial number to help identify. If the bike is stolen then the photo and serial number can be reported to the Gardai.
- There is also increase in theft of tools from garden sheds.
- Key over ride system. This is a device that can block a car locking system from a distance of 30 feet away which leaves your car open when you walk away; double check car is locked and don’t leave Christmas presents in the car or money visible while you go for coffee/lunch. The device will not allow your car to be driven away, it simply prevents it from being locked.
- Don’t entertain people selling services or looking to fix guttering/roofs, they may not be insured to do work on your property and you are responsible if things go wrong. We have a list of tradespersons that have been recommended by residents.
- Light up your house if you are out, timer switches are a good way of doing this.
- Please do not leave bags of clothes out for collection for charity as we have found a lot of the collectors are bogus. You can bring clothes to recycling centre or charity shop. Even when legitimate charity collections are around, the bogus ones often arrive earlier and take the bags.
- Do not leave car/house keys on hall tables or hooks downstairs (fishing is a method of putting hooked rods through letter boxes and stealing keys with a hook or magnet).
- 3 attempted burglaries at College Grove.
- 23 cases of criminal damage to cars from June. This is incidents like breaking wing mirrors etc.
- 7 assaults outside pubs in Dublin 15 area.
- Coolmine woods/Millennium Park/Rugged Lane – sale and supply of drugs 3 arrests firearms also found.
- 15 Business thefts since June.
- 231 cars burgled since June in Dublin 15. 48 were in the Castleknock area.
- Gardai are investigating some criminal damage caused in Riverwood on Sat 28th Oct. They have a description of the youths involved.
Gardai Statistics
Garda community office phone number is 666-7020. If you want to talk to a Community Garda privately, ask for Alex.