Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I was not going to speak today but I want to preface the discussions that will take place tomorrow by saying that we need to be very careful and nuanced in how we engage in this conversation because in terms of what happened last week, it is not one holistic group that shows up in any arena. Senators have said that we need to say that we demand a safe city but we have to understand that people engage in intense emotional reactions to things. They cannot regulate their own understanding of what they are being fed in their communities but they are our community too. The men that went through those shop windows are us. We are them. How do we create safety for them? It is not through policing. Nobody polices their way out of poverty. Nobody polices their way out of being able to read into the narratives that are being fed to them by actual fascists, who then stand back and watch our brothers, cousins and neighbours be the ones who get pointed at, called scumbags, thugs and opportunists for burning down a Luas tram, which none of us agrees with. We have to understand that this is not traceable back to that one moment in time. Violence does not resolve violence, oppression does not resolve oppression and division does not end division, whether we like the means by which people do things or not. The problem is that the structural violence of this House for generations and generations, which has left generations behind, will be responded to with violence. It has happened for centuries. When people are left behind, they have nothing to lose.When they stand on the street and ask will I-----