Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Well, no. If a planning application goes in and it is refused by the independent planning authorities then I do not think that we can blame the Government for that. In any event, I would be interested in consultations or engagement as to how we can progress a facility like that and in learning lessons about why it has not happened to date and the obstacles that it faced in planning and the issues around all of that.

On the broader issue of O'Connell Street and anti-social behaviour more generally, the budget has allocated further funding to An Garda Síochána to support high visibility policing and tackle crime and anti-social behaviour and an additional €2.5 million for youth justice measures bringing the total investment to €24 million. The Minister for Justice and the Minister of State with responsibility for law reform met with the Garda Commissioner, Drew Harris, and the assistant commissioner, Angela Willis, from the Dublin Metropolitan Region to discuss safety and anti-social behaviour in Dublin and other areas following public concern over a number of incidents. The Minister asked the Commissioner to review the operation of anti-social behaviour legislation and procedures. She also asked the Commissioner about improving the use of anti-social behaviour orders, ASBOs, including the disparity in the use of ASBOs in different areas of the country.

In line with the programme for Government commitment, the Minister of State, Deputy James Browne, established an expert forum on anti-social behaviour in 2020. This forum will examine the effectiveness of existing legislation and propose new ways forward including new powers for An Garda Síochána and additional interventions to support parenting of offenders. The forum is examining a broad range of issues with a focus on developing measures which will counter the negative impact on community morale and quality of life. There are two subgroups considering knife crime and the misuse of scramblers and quad bikes specifically. Other subgroups may be established. That is more detail on the medium-term response to some of the issues that were raised.

On O’Connell Street, I repeat what I said last week. I do think that we need to get on with the physical refurbishment of O’Connell Street. My own experience, having been on city councils in the past, is that streets can be transformed with investment in their streetscape. For a long time, with O’Connell Street and in and around Moore Street and the GPO, there has been exhaustive discussion among parties and political parties at local and national level, Deputy Ó Cuív was involved, trying to reconcile the various interests around the heritage site and so on. Eventually agreement was reached. There is not full unanimity on it and there are objections and so on. Until we get that transformed we will still be in trouble in relation to O’Connell Street. We live in a democracy and people are entitled to have perspectives but it is not enough just to say "that's wrong; that's wrong; that's wrong". We need to fix it. There are multiple ways to fix it.

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