By Dara Bradley

More than half of the recent burglaries of homes in Galway City were carried out on premises where doors and windows were unsecured, a senior Garda has revealed.

Chief Superintendent Michael O’Sullivan told Monday’s Joint Policing Committee (JPC) that 52% of burglaries carried out between the beginning of June and the end of August were on homes that were unsecured.

He warned that in more than half of burglaries, burglars were gaining easy access to homes because the owners and occupiers were leaving front doors, back doors and windows opened.

During that three month period, June to August, 97 burglaries were committed, including 20 of commercial premises and 77 of homes.
Of these, 25% were carried out on homes where windows were left open, 17% were of homes where the front door was not locked and 10% were of homes where the back door was not locked.

“What part of lock up your house do you not understand,” asked Chief Supt O’Sullivan at the meeting as he encouraged the public to secure their homes to prevent burglaries.

He told the meeting that householders, and in particular students, were leaving laptops and other valuables on windowsills in full view of passersby and then leaving doors and windows open making them more vulnerable to burglaries. Leaving handbags and other valuable items on the passenger seats of cars and walking away without locking it was another problem, he said.

An Garda Síochána in Galway has held public awareness and crime prevention campaigns in third level institutes in the city, he said.
 

For more, read this week's Connacht Sentinel.