The nightmare scenario that engulfed the Corcorans in November 2013 when seven young Dublin men, with 300 convictions between them, broke into their family home near Killenaule, Co Tipperary, framed the debate about rural crime.

Mark Corcoran was torn from his sleep, badly beaten and bound with cable ties by the gang searching for money and valuables. One of the raiders told his wife, Emma: “We’ll kill your f**king kids”. The couple’s three girls watched, terrified.

“My eldest daughter was standing over me crying ‘daddy is dead’. I can only describe it as like being at my own funeral without being dead,” Corcoran said in October when the raiders were jailed for between 12 and 20 years.

The gang’s mission from Dublin had secured just € 1,300 in cash, or € 186 each, but the publicity surrounding it provoked loud calls for action, community meetings and legislative change.

The temperature had been rising all year. In August, John O’Donoghue, a 62-year-old carpenter from Doon in Co Limerick, died of a heart attack after encountering intruders in his home. Two men have since been charged with alleged trespass and theft.

Hundreds of people at a public meeting in Thurles heard of a surge in the last 18 months, with five or six robberies on a typical night. Many are blamed on links to local gang members. The closure of 140 rural Garda stations is blamed by many, though the statistics argue otherwise.

Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan recently pointed out that policing is not about bricks and mortar: “What is important is the fear of crime,” she said. “If people are vulnerable in their own homes, it’s something that we have to work hard on.”

Risk exaggerated

Tim Dalton, chairman of Crimestoppers, said the risk of being a victim of burglary is exaggerated in Ireland: “Crime in this country, in comparison to other countries, is relatively low. But the fear factor is probably the same.”

Burglaries are up by a fifth since 2007, but 80 per cent of the rise has happened in Dublin, not in rural Ireland. There, burglary rates have dropped in 10 of 28 Garda divisions, though the number of aggravated burglaries, involving violence, has risen by a third.

The debate about rural crime is not a new phenomenon. Fears of rural burglaries by Dublin gangs rose in the early and mid-’90s, leading to targeted Garda operations.

With an election looming, the Government offered the Garda new jeeps, plus promises of tougher sentences for repeat offenders.