Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to speak to this very important issue. I heard previous speakers talk about Dublin but antisocial behaviour and fireworks are not confined to the city. Deputy Grealish mentioned Galway. In my constituency of Galway East we have antisocial behaviour through different strands. We have it on local authority estates where the local authorities are not capable or do not have the resources to manage the estates properly. We have it on private estates that have rental accommodation where a few people make life very difficult for a large number of people.

antisocial behaviour and all that goes with it, and the fireworks which are part of all of that, can destroy communities and housing estates, with very few involved in it. It can also downgrade the value of the homes of people who borrowed money to take out a mortgage only to find they may have the neighbours from hell living beside them. It can also be soul-destroying for the residents on those estates who are trying to keep them in a well-kept manner.

It goes back to one thing in my book: education. It is a question of educating people on what is right and wrong and of their parents taking their responsibility seriously. Unfortunately, not all families get this education. There is a major downgrading of standards when people get away with antisocial behaviour. Something than starts off in a very trivial way can snowball very fast, resulting in a major problem. How do we deal with it? To answer this, we should consider our approach to Covid. When the gardaí are out trying to enforce regulations, they first engage with people and explain to them what is right and what they have done wrong. They explain to them how they can move forward and do things right. They provide enforcement if necessary. From my experience, in the time between something happening and the taking of action, many barriers are put in the place of gardaí, local authorities and community groups. The law seems to be stacked in favour of the perpetrators of crimes. The hands of the local authorities are, therefore, tied, as are the hands of the Garda. Until people ask the difference between right and wrong, we will not deal with this. It comes back to education. We need to change people's attitudes. The one way of doing so is to ensure that those who do something wrong know they will be punished. If those who are continually brought to court for antisocial behaviour or importing and using dangerous fireworks come out without any consequence for their lives, we must ask how we can improve the attitude. One way we can do so is by increasing the resources of the gardaí. We should have more community gardaí on the ground and walking the streets. We must take preventative measures rather than try to enforce.

I do not believe there is anyone in this House who would condone antisocial behaviour. In our constituencies, we all have had experiences of what can happen when something goes wrong. The last thing we want is to come back here to talk again about somebody who got seriously injured by fireworks or who got seriously injured because of antisocial behaviour. We need to ensure that those who engage in antisocial behaviour realise they will be subject to the rigour of the law and that they think before they do something.

Deputy Grealish mentioned the issue of people living in fear, afraid to report activity to the Garda or social housing authority. We must give these people courage and backup.

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