Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I regret that once again, I have to speak in this House on the level of violence in our capital city. A dangerous level of unprovoked and gratuitous violence is being perpetrated against people who are socialising in Dublin at night time. Three weeks ago, a 23 year old man was viciously assaulted on Dame Street after he had been subjected to homophobic abuse. That young man had his left eye socket fractured. On the same night, an Italian man was also attacked around in the same vicinity. Two weeks ago, a 24 year old English man was gratuitously assaulted on D'Olier Street and is now in hospital fighting for his life.

We need to understand what is happening. Gangs of youths who believe they are immune to apprehension are prowling Dublin city at night time looking for people to attack. They are misogynistic towards women, they are homophobic towards gay people and they are particularly seeking to target men in their late teens to their 30s who are on their own or just with one other person. We need to understand that part of the solution is that Dublin needs to become more like other European cities. If you go to other European cities you see a good number of policemen policing those city centres at night time. We do not have enough gardaí on the streets at night time.

I thank the Minister of State for coming here today but I would ask him to get the answer back to the Minister for Justice and, through her, to the Garda Commissioner, that we need to see more gardaí in Dublin city centre at night time. I do not want to see Gardaí at meetings at night time or stuck in Garda stations. I want to see them out patrolling the inner city. I fear that we will not get a strong enough response until regrettably a tourist is killed in this city. If it is not checked or challenged, Dublin will get a terrible name as a place of violence. It will damage our tourism industry and will also damage us as a place for foreign direct investment. We need tougher and stronger policing and stronger sentencing.

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