THE VALUE of the 25-year-old Community Alert Programme was impossible to quantify but people felt safer because of it, President Mary McAleese told members of Muintir na Tíre in Tipperary this weekend.
The President attended the Canon Hayes Recreation Centre in Tipperary town on Saturday as part of celebrations to mark the silver anniversary of the programme.
The programme was established by Muintir na Tíre in 1985 after a series of attacks on elderly people living alone in rural communities. In co-operation with the Garda, the programme established community networks to watch out for older residents.
There are now 1,400 such networks around the Republic.
Exhibitions from some of the programme’s networks around the State lined the corridors of the recreation centre. They included a display from Rathangan Community Alert Body which set up a text alert system to warn of suspicious activities. Inniskeen Community Alert piloted a “bottle-in-the-fridge” project to be used in the homes of older people. The bottle contains vital health information. A sticker is placed on the individuals’ door alerting emergency personnel to the presence of the bottle.
President McAleese, who is patron of Muintir na Tíre, thanked the organisation for its hard work and for “25 year of caring for the community”. She said “instead of walking past on the other side of the road”, it had stepped forward and told the Garda it would help.
“You have put together a package of care that is now so important in people’s lives,” she said.
She said she did not think it would ever be possible to fully measure the human and community impact it had brought to people. People felt safer, happier and less alone since community alert was introduced, she said.
“I wish there was some way of capturing in a real sense the sheer reach of it,” she said.
“The real tribute to you is that we can’t do that, it is too vast.”
Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy said the programme was what policing was all about – partnership with the community. He said that a conference next month would examine how to increase membership and develop new initiatives. “This is not rocket science; it’s one person looking out for the other,” he said.
