A Garda suffered knife wounds following an incident in a Tipperary village last week.
He was responding to a call in Clogheen where a man was making threats.
The patrol car with just one Garda attended the scene – a weapon was produced and the officer was injured.
Garda Representative Association rep for Tipperary Richard Kennedy says the intervention of a member of the public averted a more serious incident.
“Thanks to a passer-by who when the knife became loose during the course of the incident threw it away and allowed the member not to be badly injured – he was injured – but not as badly as the situation could have been. He has some physical injuries but mentally I’m sure it will take him a good length of time to bounce back. A very, very frightening situation that could have been a hell of a lot worse.”
Richard Kennedy told Tipp Today that stations such as Cahir should not be so short staffed that a Garda would have to attend on his own.
“You’d understand in a one-man station the likes of Ardfinnan and country villages where there’s only one man attached to the station you’d understand there would be only one man in a patrol car. But its become a growing phenomenon where the likes of Cahir which is a district headquarters and you’ve one Garda in a patrol car covering what would be a vast area including two town centres in Cashel and Cahir and he’d be covering Clogheen and Ardfinnan on his own.”
