Mr. Noel Dunne:

I thank the committee for the invitation to come and talk about this rising problem. On the Deputy's question about the number of incidents per day, I am in Dublin city centre and have at least two to three incidents per day, sometimes much more, of petty thieving. Organised gangs of four or five people come in together. One or two of them keep an eye while the other two or three people fill their bags or they talk to the manager or the staff.

The biggest rise is underage 14-year-olds to 16-year-olds on those wretched electric scooters who pull up outside, run in as gangs, grab what they can and run out. They are completely brazen and aloof to any law or wrongdoing. They know, and they say very often, that they cannot be touched, that "You cannot put your hands on me. You cannot stop me." Then they run out the door. They are right, in the present situation, that we cannot. They run out the door with the product and that is it.

Costs were mentioned earlier and we do a stock take every quarter. It costs at the very least €25,000 per year for stock alone. I also have CCTV cameras in the store. I have a security guard for 25 hours per week which costs approximately €35,000. Altogether it costs me €60,000 to €70,000 per year before I put a light on just to protect the stock knowing full well that at least €20,000 to €30,000 of the stock will go out the door anyway - and this is the stock we can account for.

As for my ask today, we need a deterrent. I know the issue of deterrents came up during the three presentations. There is no deterrent and that is getting worse day by day and week by week. The frustration for retailers, certainly in the high-volume areas where we are in town, is that with the rise of what social media can do to crime and how it can fuel crime, lately these guys text one another and say, "Look, this is easy. If you are caught they will not touch you." If we go to court - as I have done many times - they get a slap on the wrist and are back out. So, why not?