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

The recent RTÉ programme on O'Connell Street and the videos emerging from Cherry Orchard put a spotlight on policing, drug misuse, open drug-dealing and general antisocial behaviour There is also a growing feeling that the public transport system in some areas of Dublin is not safe for either passengers or staff. On a weekly basis, we hear of buses terminating before the final stop because it is not safe to drive into some estates due to antisocial behaviour. As well as leaving residents, commuters and visitors feeling nervous, this puts already stretched members of the Garda under huge pressure. Every week in this Chamber we hear that for us to reach our climate goals, we need to massively increase public transport infrastructure. We need more buses and trains. To encourage people to make the switch from cars it must be affordable but a fundamental piece of the jigsaw is also that it is safe, that there is security on our buses, trams and trains in the city.

Open drug use and dealing is a common sight in the city and suburbs and on public transport, as well as disturbing levels of antisocial behaviour and violence. Everyone should be and feel safe on our public transport. Sinn Féin has consistently called for the establishment of a dedicated public transport police unit to address antisocial behaviour and other criminal activity on public transport and at transport hubs. The negligence of the Government properly to resource An Garda Síochána to tackle these issues is a major concern. In 2016 I read a report on a retired garda, Trevor Laffan, who said “I was a garda for 35 years and I can tell you community policing has been destroyed”. That is a strong statement from a former garda who was passionate about community policing and its benefits to both the Garda and the community. In Dublin 15 we have a dedicated and hard-working community policing unit. However it is in no way near to being properly resourced in terms of personnel needed. Dublin 15 and Dublin 7 are some of the most diverse and fast-growing urban areas in the State. We have one Garda station. Limerick has three. We have one third of the Garda personnel that Limerick has and yet we both have similar populations. In fact, Dublin 15 has now increased to about 110,000 and Limerick is just below 100,000. Since 2018, we have seen a decrease of 168 gardaí deployed to a public order unit. In terms of overall policing, while the numbers of members has been climbing slowly since Templemore was reopened, a significant number of new Garda members leave annually. This trend, together with retirements, is placing massive pressure on those who remain. This is of great concern. I have spoken first-hand to members of the force who cited issues with retention, recruitment and dissatisfaction with these new proposed rotas and conditions. I raised this with our local superintendent at our joint policing committee, JPC, in the Crowne Plaza, who admitted that retention is increasingly becoming a problem with an alarming number of new recruits leaving the force. It is such a concern that steps are being taken to look at why people who have only joined, that is, newly-trained people, are leaving.

We cannot and must not talk about policing in isolation. We cannot talk about community safety in isolation. To do so is to ensure that we continue to stick a plaster over the problems of disadvantage, poverty, drug misuse, addiction, violence and trauma. There has been an abject failure of successive Governments to tackle the root causes of crime, antisocial behaviour and drug misuse. Those of us who have worked in the community for decades have seen brilliant and effective holistic wraparound drug and misuse addiction services, early intervention initiatives, plans and strategies among a myriad of other measures starved of funding and decimated by cuts, as well as a refusal to properly fund them into the future. We have seen community services and activists isolated, ignored, minimised and dismissed by people in the HSE and particularly those in the national drugs task force. In 2019, all of the country’s former Ministers of State with responsibility for the national drug strategy united to call on the Government to restore confidence in the national drug strategy, particularly because the partnership approach which underpins the strategy was in danger of collapse. My recent conversations and work on the ground show that very little has changed since then. A county-wide project aimed at tackling crime, drug misuse and criminal and antisocial behaviour needs a multifaceted approach that has the funds to match its ambition of creating a safer Dublin. A Dublin mayor could be well placed to lead it.

Sinn Féin in government would stand up for communities to ensure they have a real say and a voice in a community that targeted education programmes like school completion, youth drug and alcohol services, counselling services, child and adolescent mental health services and community gardaí with adequate resources so people can live and work in a city they feel safe in.

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