Much has happened with Property Marking Ireland over the past 18 months in the delivery of our community-led crime prevention program. The events of the past 9 months, of which you are all only too well aware, has changed dramatically the delivery of our program on the ground. We suspended all training from the first week of March in order to protect our community partners and, indeed, our own volunteers.

However, a lot of positive developments had happened before Covid struck . Our program is up and running in the following counties – Donegal, Sligo, Leitrim, Monaghan, Cavan, Louth, Roscommon, Meath, Kildare, West Cork, Clare, Tipperary, North Dublin(Fingal Farmers) and Longford.  

Our program has also been approved by the Joint Policing Committees of Galway, Limerick and Westmeath. We have also received enquiries from Mayo, Cork, and Wicklow, and Offaly.

To date we have marked over 80,000 household valuables, trained over 350 community Gardai and volunteers in over 250 communities.

NATIONAL RECOGNITION

PMI and James O’Neill in particular, has been the recipient of 2 national awards in the last 12 months.

• Social Entrepreneurs Ireland Awardee 2019
• Rethink Ireland Award 2020

This validation is a testament to the collective hard work of all our participating communities, and the support of our partners but it also demonstrates the value that external observers see in the programme and the way that it can help to deter crime.

SIGNAGE

Over 500 signs which include the Garda logo have been erected by communities. Their visible presence has been a positive deterrent to those wishing to engage in property theft .

OUR PARTNERS

We say a huge thank you to the support shown by the participating Joint Policing Committees, Local Authorities, An Garda Síochána, Eircode, IFA Skillnet program. We also recognise the critical role of the members of Community Alert, Neighbourhood Watch, farming groups, Men’s Sheds, residents’ associations, and many more who, after receiving the specially designed training program from PMI, then deliver the service within their own communities.

OUR NEED FOR FUNDING

To date PMI has operated on an almost entirely voluntary basis and has achieved a lot with minimum resources arising principally from the national awards referred to above. However, to continue to deliver our programme to communities at virtually no cost is not sustainable. We have been in contact both with state bodies and potential  commercial sponsors of our work. We have not had much success to date but continue to hope and to engage.