Picture the scene. You are 70 years of age. You wake in your bed in a farm on rural Ireland. You hear a noise outside and you dial 999. As your local garda station closed over a year ago, the gards tell you that a car will be dispatched from the nearest station which will take an hour to get to you.

You are alone and frozen in fear and terrified to go outside for fear of being attacked and you lie there knowing that your property is being ransacked.

This is a scene now not untypical in rural Ireland as crime continues to rise in remote or secluded areas that are virtually unpoliced. Criminals will always be alert to opportunity and there is plenty of opportunities in rural Ireland.

Crime such as theft of farm machinery, precious metals, diesel and livestock have all increased. There are marauding gangs of criminals roaming right across the country causing havoc and fear in their wake.

So, what is being done - and what can be done - to stop this? Longer jail terms for burglary as proposed by justice minister Francis Fitzgerald will be welcomed. Personal pendent alarms for the elderly are being funded by the government but so much more needs to be done.

CCTV cameras and greater use of this technology must be embraced and activated. Farm owners need to be helped to introduce the sophisticated alarm systems that are now available.

More policing hours need to be given to rural areas and if this means opening up garda stations that have been closed then so be it.

I saw one farmer on a video on YouTube saying it was time to bring in the army - the situation has become so serious.

The type of policing policy has also provoked some debate. When the local gard was based in the small village he was on the ground and would be alert to strangers or activity in a particular area. Now the gard can be based many miles away. A lot of gards with experience in policing in rural areas have now retired and many complain that the new breed lack the experience in dealing with rural crime.

Precious metal theft has reached epidemic levels and although legalisation may be in place, there is still an unacceptable traceability in where scrap metal dealers are buying their raw material from. Squeeze the seller of precious metals to provide evidence of where his metal came from and you will reduce theft of these materials.

So what about protecting yourself? Many people have dogs, but we have seen growing incidents of dogs being poisoned which shows the lengths these gangs will go to in order to steal from farmers and people living in rural isolation.

You can arm yourself with a gun which you are perfectly entitled to do - but many people are uncomfortable with keeping a gun in the house.

So a lot to be discussed on rural crime then. Down to Business will be at The Ploughing Championship on Tuesday the 22nd and we will be hosting a special debate on this very topic.

Our guests will include Crime journalist Paul Williams and rural politician Michael Healy Rae. If you are at 'The Ploughing' come and join our debate.

We will play out the discussion on Down To Business on Saturday 26th September so tune in then to see how we together can: STOP CRIME IN RURAL IRELAND.