Five-star hotels are being built quicker and cheaper than local garda stations, the country's largest Garda union said today.
The Garda Representative Association (GRA), which has 10,000 members, said more than 100 garda stations need to be replaced, extended or refurbished.
Up to 30 current priority cases include Dunmanway, Ballinhassig, Ballymun, Finglas, Wexford, Scotstown in Co Monaghan and Mill Street in Galway city.
GRA spokesman Owen Connell today criticised the slow progress and the poor value for money being delivered by the building programme run by Office of Public Works (OPW).
"Progress on our building programme is too slow, cumbersome and bureaucratic and too costly," Mr Connell told the Irish Conference of Professional and Service Association. (ICPSA).
The GRA tabled a motion at the ICPSA conference in Mullingar calling on Minister for Justice Michael McDowell to remove responsibility over the Garda Building Programme from the OPW.
"The OPW on its own admission has stated that when they arrive in town the cost of property there takes a jump," he said. "This again adds to the cost of building new stations and questions the value we get for our money."
The GRA said the Garda Building Programme was allocated €27.5 million in 2004 but conditions are getting worse in stations on a daily basis.
"It is our considered opinion in the GRA that to build a basic Garda station at present is costing more per square metres than it would cost to build and fit a five-star hotel. That speaks for itself," Mr Connell added.
PA