Mr. Richard Guiney:

I certainly would not underestimate the importance of how people feel. We are trying to encourage people to spend their time in Dublin city centre and if they do not feel safe, that is a significant issue for us.

We can look at things such as the crime prevention through environmental design, CPTED, principles, that I mention earlier, which is basically how we lay out our city and use more innovative ways of instilling a degree of comfort in people. That has been used effectively in other cities. They are something well worth investing in.

Operation Citizen was addressing some of the issues in terms of the Garda presence on the street but we can always do with more gardaí, particularly at night. What we saw before the pandemic was an increase in the evening and night-time economy, and perhaps a decrease in the daytime economy. In all our emergency services and all the services we provide, including the transport the Deputy mentioned, we need to look at providing more at night. That is the where, internationally, the trend was going before the pandemic and we assume it will kick off again as the pandemic recedes. It is an important part of the overall economy that we address the needs of people, as the Deputy rightly pointed out, not only who are patrons of venues at night but who work in those venues. They deserve services such as night transport and they deserve to feel safe when they come out of their place of work.