IT WOULD be an exaggeration to say the work of the gardai in Enniskerry, Co Wicklow, is dominated by efforts to help the village win the Tidy Towns award. But they're certainly making a big contribution to the cause.
The station is a riot of flowery window boxes and fresh paint, and fits perfectly into the village in which much of the television series Ballykissangel is filmed.
One of the daily chores of the garda on duty is to tend the plants, which are provided under the guidance of the head gardener at Powerscourt, just up the road.
And, yes, some of the gardai are involved with the local Tidy Towns committee.
They have some crime to deal with too, however, especially during summertime when tourists double the population of the village to something like 5,000. Visiting cars are a target for visiting criminals, and there is an ongoing problem of illegal camping in nearby Knocksink Woods.
The theft of valuable antiques is also an occasional feature, reflecting both the affluence of the area and the proximity to what gardai describe as a group specialising in such theft from a base in Tallaght - only 10 minutes drive over the mountains.
The surrounding mountains and woods also hold the dubious distinction of being dumping sites for the bodies of people murdered elsewhere - the gardai can recall seven in the past 10 years. But on a day like yesterday, a posting to the Wicklow outpost would be the dream of many city-based gardai.
While the Enniskerry Garda Station is a relatively old building which still comfortably accommodates the local gardai and the local crime rate, the same cannot be said of its equivalent in Bray.
The station in Bray occupies a former private house which is now overwhelmed by the policing needs of the area. It is a source of despair for Sgt John Smith, the DMA East chairman of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors.
Eighty people are squeezed into the station, which has no office space for most of them. The place has a single shower, situated in the gents' toilet - an inconvenience, to say the least, for the towns' 11 female gardai.
The building boasts two cells but only one interview room, and this in a town of 30,000 people which is ever being more absorbed into greater Dublin. "It's a crazy situation," said Sgt Smith, who claims the station doesn't even have enough chairs to go around.