Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There is a serious problem developing in towns around the country. Significant areas within out towns are being ceded to thugs, to crime and to drug dealers. Certain public parks and playgrounds in towns such as Navan are taken over on sunny days by adults drinking cans and spirits. Drugs are openly sold and consumed in broad daylight in town squares in towns in Meath. Many families are being tormented by anti-social behaviour by neighbours.

I know of one young mother in Trim with a newborn baby. She is living next door to a family that has allowed rubbish to pile up so much that the place is full of rats and some of the adults in that family have started urinating on the door of the young mother's house. They stare in the window looking at her and the kids kick footballs up against her windows. Music is played loudly into the night. The landlord of the perpetrators cannot get them out currently and is considering paying them €5,000 to leave. Not being able to sleep and not feeling safe in one's own house is, I believe, a threat to the physical and mental health of a person.

Last week in my home town of Navan, a shopkeeper, Ciaran Reilly, was severely beaten by thugs while defending his shop. He was left with severe bruising and swelling to his head and needed serious medical attention. Recently, another teenager in the county was rushed to hospital having been found with stab wounds. A farming contractor has had €12,000 worth of tractor parts stolen from his yard in the past year. He came across the thieves and they came at him with a wheel brace.

There are well over 400 assaults happening in County Meath every year. The homicide figures for the county, which include manslaughter and murder, have increased and sexual offences have trended upwards over the last 12 years.

At the same time, between 2011 and 2012, there has been a significant fall in the number of gardaí in the county. Trim, Summerhill, Longwood, Kilmessan, Enfield, Ballivor, Kells, Crossakiel, Laytown, Dunshaughlin and Ashbourne have all lost gardaí under the Minister of State's Government. We have lost 25 gardaí in total in County Meath, with Garda stations being closed in places such as Kilmessan and Crossakiel. At the time, my colleague, Senator Pádraig Mac Lochlainn, tabled a parliamentary question to find out how much the Government was saving by closing these Garda stations. He found out that it was the princely sum of €4,000 a year per Garda station to have them closed.

We know that gardaí are fiercely frustrated about their working environment. Morale is at an all-time low due to the scandals with regard to the Garda management failings and the abdication of responsibility and oversight by the Government. The Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors has said that we are now witnessing the human impact of seven years of austerity. The Garda Inspectorate report uncovered serious, systemic weaknesses in An Garda Síochána. I have come to the view that at this stage there is nearly a tolerable level of crime, thuggery, drug dealing and alcohol abuse in our public spaces. There is a danger that if I raise these issues I will be blamed by some people for blackening my own county. If I do not raise the issues, however, we know they will never get fixed. I must give credit to the group of people in Roscrea who are taking this issue by the scruff of the neck and who are doing great work in that regard.

The situation needs to be fixed and it can be fixed. I look to the Minister of State to identify what the Government will do to ensure that towns such as those I have mentioned will be safe places for people.

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