Rural crime has been a significant issue for many years now. Most editions of this paper carry at least one story of theft from a farm, whether it’s machinery, livestock, or pilfering of tools and equipment that can quickly and easily run into thousands of euro in losses for farmers.

Every time it happens, it changes the dynamic on a family farm. The cumulative effect is to alter the nature of communities and eventually rural society.

The open welcome that was a staple of most farmyards is already becoming a thing of the past, with barriers shutting friend and foe alike out, and imprisoning people in their own homesteads becoming a regular feature.

The bad news is that all the evidence would suggest that the level of crime is rising. The REDC poll commissioned by the Irish Farmers Journal in September presented an authoritative picture of the prevalence of robberies. It confirmed what anecdotal evidence had suggested – criminal gangs are on the rampage around the country.

Some 38% of farms –that’s 50,000 farms – have been subjected to a burglary.

The rate is clearly rising, with almost 38,000 farms victims of a robbery in the last five years, and 13,000 in the last year – significantly higher than the 7,500 five-year average reported to our poll. Half of the 1,000 farmers surveyed stated that one of their neighbours had been robbed in the last year alone.

It’s a stark picture – one that was catapulted on to the national stage by the extraordinary meeting in Thurles in September. Three thousand people turned up for an event organised by a group of locals – business owners and farmers – who decided it was time the silent majority found their voice. A massive media focus saw the issue hit Prime Time, the Late Late Show, and every radio news programme of note – national and local. It seemed the calm testimony of people hit a chord. Further meetings are being planned for Meath and Wexford under the same banner of Save Our Community.

The gardaí have stated that they are not experiencing a big increase in reported crime, but the REDC poll did reveal the fact that one in four burglaries are never reported to them. This alone explains why they might not feel the rise in robbery.

There is no doubt that high crime levels are concentrated in certain parts of the country, particularly around our motorway network – the Thurles/Horse and Jockey/Littleton area is adjacent to the M7 linking Cork and Dublin.

There has been a response in recent months. Taoiseach Enda Kenny, Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald, and Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly all have announced initiatives, ranging from high-powered cars to match the criminal gangs roaming the country at night, to camera systems on entry and exit points to those motorways, to consecutive sentences so career criminals don’t get absolution for all their wrongdoings with a bunch of sentences running at the same time. Operation Hurdle was launched by the gardaí last week to combat the seasonal menace of theft of Christmas trees. Another garda initiative, Operation Fiacla, has targeted burglary since 2012. It has reported a high level of arrests in that time. The question stands whether it has affected the criminal gangs targeting farmyards.

They have a specific way of operating – they work under cover of night, attacking farmyards when honest people are in their beds. They will repeatedly target a premises where they have successfully burgled – one in three of the farms robbed had been revisited a second or more times. They have a number of routes to market for their stolen property, with sellers on websites, car boot sales and the white van hard to track down. The message to all farmers must be crystal clear – never trade with someone operating without some evidence of being a legitimate trader. A VAT number should be a prerequisite. Otherwise, we are accessories to the criminals, and eventually it will be our turn to be victims.

Safety

Thankfully, most people still feel safe at night – these crimes are predominantly of property, and houses are not routinely targeted at night. It’s farmyards that are chosen. Nine out of 10 respondents to our poll said they still feel safe in their house at night – but the one in 10 who don’t feel safe are mostly those living alone or more elderly. We owe it to them to relentlessly tackle this social disease until the tide is turned.