Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank my colleague, Deputy Ward, for bringing forward this motion. The Minister has heard that our communities sound like war zones because of the number of fireworks that have been going off for the past number of months and their power. Dozens of messages and videos about this issue have been sent to me through Facebook by people from across Dublin West, from the Navan Road, through Tyrrelstown and down to Ongar. I was walking my dog in the Millennium Park, next to where I live, and I could turn 360 degrees and see fireworks going off in every direction. They were everywhere and the sound of them was deafening.

Sadly, a number of young people have been injured, some by accident and others because fireworks were fired at them. There is no doubt that the pandemic and the situation we are in have led to an increase in the number of young people on the streets. They would usually have supports available to them, including schools, community services, Foróige, youth services and community gardaí. Those kinds of people would ordinarily have been around and engaging with young people but they have not been around as much recently. They are doing much of their work through Zoom and that is not effective. Young people need a one-to-one connection and I hope we can start to return to that in the coming weeks.

There are two major issues with Garda resources. The first is that we do not have enough of them. There were 88 community gardaí in Dublin West in 2010 and today there are 79. The loss of nine gardaí may not sound like a lot but, in the context of Dublin West, that is a huge resource.

The second issue is that community gardaí do not feel as valued as other members of the Garda because when a crime takes place, whether a shooting, a robbery or another incident, and the Garda needs somebody to conduct door-to-door inquiries, community gardaí are the first group to be pulled away from their duties to do that type of work. That stops them from engaging with local communities and young people. That needs to stop. We need community gardaí to be completely valued like every other unit in the force.

Before I let my colleagues in, I wish to strike a good note. Every year in Fingal and Dublin 15, Foróige, the Blanchardstown community policing forum, Fingal County Council, the Garda and the community have all come together to provide wonderful community projects. I hope they can be resourced even better this year. We need these projects even more this year because of the events of recent months. I hope the Minister listens and we get those extra resources for communities, youth services and the Garda to deal with this matter. It can be done.

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