About Rural Crime

At its heart, Rural Safety is tied to the broader concept of Community Safety. Community safety goes beyond just policing and crime. It is about people being, and importantly, feeling safe in their communities. It includes everything from visible Gardaí to safe places for children to play. Everyone, whether they live in, work in, or are just visiting a community, deserves to be safe and to feel safe so that they can enjoy all that the community has to offer. 

We can say that one of the factors that impacts feelings of Rural Safety can be the geographical isolation of communities and people living in Rural Ireland. This sense of physical isolation, of being apart from the services and supports that a person feels they need to access in times of difficulty, is a challenge that those who live in sparsely populated areas of the country face every day. 

This distance should not be of detriment to feelings of safety for persons living in Rural Ireland. There are many services, both State and voluntary, that act as first responders in an emergency across Ireland, such as Civil Defence, the RNLI and the emergency services (Gardaí/ Fire/Ambulance).

National Rural Safety Plan

Vision

People and communities in rural Ireland feel safe and are safe in their homes, places of work, and their local environments.

The Rural Safety Plan 2022-2024 brings together and strengthens all of the various strands of work being carried out in relation to rural safety. In demonstrating and highlighting the collaborative efforts made by An Garda Síochána, other State bodies, the Rural Safety Forum, community groups, and supported by the Government. The Plan seeks to enhance security in our rural areas and enforces the importance that is rightfully placed on the welfare of rural Irish communities.
*Note: The 2025 – 2027 Plan is currently being drafted and due for release in 2025.

About the Plan (2022-2024)

The aim of the Rural Safety Plan is to strengthen and enhance community safety initiatives in rural areas and to provide residents of rural areas with information and resources relating to safety initiatives that are available. 

 Not all these initiatives will apply to every rural area, and some will apply to areas that many would consider urban, such as larger towns. The Plan is intended to offer an overview and to be informative and accessible while outlining the key actions and their owners in a clear, concise manner as well as providing useful contacts for partner organisations. 

The Rural Safety Plan 2022-2024 highlights the safety-related initiatives underway across the State in Action Plans for 5 priority areas: 

• Community Safety
• Burglary and Theft
• Roads Policing
• Animal Crime
• Heritage Crime

The Action Plans that make up the overall Rural Safety Plan outline the key actions underway in each priority area in an informative and accessible way. Further, the Plan provides useful contacts for partner organisations and organisations that share our aim of advancing the safety of our people, as well as groups committed to supporting victims of crime. 

The actions and outcomes of the National Rural Safety Forum feed into these Action Plans and in doing so grow their impact, their reach and the social sustainability of rural Ireland