A retiring garda superintendent has said that gardaí should be part of the community they are policing, but admits that when he joined the force 39 years ago policing was more like that portrayed by the hit TV series Heartbeat.
Instead Supt Eamon Courtney, who retired this weekend, has investigated 10 murders, numerous fatal traffic accidents and ensured VIPs such as Prince Charles and former Northern Secretary Mo Mowlam were able to visit the Boyne Valley without being targets of terrorists.
Based in Navan since 1993, he oversaw the introduction of the current policing plan utilised every year for the Slane rock concerts.
One of its most important tasks is ensuring that there are no drownings in the Boyne River, which runs from the village to the concert site and beyond.
At his suggestions the river was broken down into 10 separate "beats", each with its own boat and crew; it has ensured no one gets into the river or if they do, that they are pulled out alive.
Since it was introduced in the late 1990s no one has drowned at the concerts.
As he prepared to hang up his cap he warned that "the basic tenet of policing is community policing, and we must interface with people on a daily basis; we have to learn to be good listeners and utilise what resources you have to tackle problems."
The population of Navan has quadrupled in the last 15 years and he says one of the most tragic incidents he came across involved a woman who had taken her own life, but who was dead for eight days before anyone noticed.
Supt Courtney also regrets the failure of the searches for the IRA disappeared. The IRA indicated that three secret graves could be found in a bog and wood outside Navan and, "we did not spare on time or resources, and deforested eight acres of wood that was then dug down to a depth of seven feet. It is one of my regrets that we did not find a piece of bone to DNA which might have helped the next of kin."
However, his most serious tone is reserved for heroin, "because when it manifests to any degree you have trouble, big trouble.
"Other drugs done create the monster you have with heroin abusers; they don't see the granny, just the handbag and the money for the next fix. It is a problem that law enforcement alone will not solve," he said.