Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It may seem odd that a country Deputy should get involved in Dublin city but, as the previous speaker has just said, it is everybody's city. We all have to take responsibility for it. We take pride in it and we reserve the right to comment when things are not as they should be. I acknowledge the point raised by Deputy Bríd Smith with regard to sporting and recreational facilities, clubs and youth clubs. An audit of what is available for young people is needed. It is not enough to say people are poor, upset and angry; people were poor in this city before and matters did not degenerate to the point where it is now.

I have spoken several times about the appearance of the city when driving across it at night when one finds people falling out of doorways, staggering across the road and falling around the place in an appalling way. They are obviously a danger to themselves and create a problem for the appearance of the city but there is a health issue as well.We need to do an audit of the facilities available and try to make sure they are made available conveniently. Some people say we should have no cars in the future. I do not agree with that. There will always be people who need cars. There will always be people who have business to do and will not get on to public transport at an approved and agreed point. They wish to do their business in their own time, go home and be independent in their own time. Every city in the world has facilities to do that but we are moving away from it altogether. That is taking away people's independence.

I have strong views as a former member of a ministerial task force. I know the argument continues as to whether it should be prohibition and police work to ensure the elimination of drugs or a health issue. It has to be both and they have to be applied with due regard for the situation presenting itself. We found that methadone was widely available and regularly used but, unfortunately, the victims were not relying on it. Methadone was only a top-up. The well-run centres ensured that if those who attended went to get a top-up somewhere else, they were not welcome at the clinics. I am strongly of the view that we have to do both. We have to do enforcement and cut off the supply.

A late former Member of this House, Tony Gregory, spent years campaigning on the drugs issue in Dublin city. Despite it being dangerous, he courageously targeted the suppliers again and again, that is, the drug barons and the guys who were able to drive along in their BMWs and have deliveries take place at all times of the day and night. He drew attention to them because he saw them as a major contributory issue to an affliction that was affecting a whole new generation in a way that it had never presented before. He was right to do so and we need to continue to do so.

We need to review policing in the city in particular to such an extent as to interrupt the delivery of packages to households and strategic corners in locations throughout the city. We need to do so deliberately. I welcome the Minister concentration on this area but we need to emphasise it. There is no use in backing away from it or saying we are casting a stigma on the city. Decadence is not nice in any shape or form. Fear is not nice, when people become afraid to walk on a particular street in a particular area at night. In my heyday, I walked every possible place there was to go in this city, as I am sure everybody else in this House did. I walked without fear and people were not richer then than they are now. We need to recognise what is slipping away.

I remember going to another city in another country, once upon a time, where all I could see in the middle of the city was graffiti all over the place. It was not a great sign or vision of the city or an indicator for those who came to visit the place. Dublin city is a shop window. Investors come to Dublin. I know many people in this House do not like investors and would prefer if they were elsewhere but the fact of the matter is we need and have always needed jobs. It is important to ensure that people who come to this city and country can rest assured they are safe to walk and travel regardless of their religion, race or colour. I remember when Salman Rushdie penned his famous The Satanic Verses. I think I was the only one who disagreed with him at the time and I said so. The book was seen as an expression of freedom of speech but I saw it as something else. I saw it as something that begged a response. It was threatening people of selected religions. Some people are very sensitive about religion. We should know about it in this country, for God's sake. Those people saw a reason for retaliation because they were sensitive about it and retaliation happened. However, nobody knocked on Salman Rushdie's door and told him he had started up something he should not have and that it was of no help.

By the same token, we have to identify the problem in every way. Incidentally, I was driving home last night when I heard somebody who rang into a radio programme to say he or she had a right to hate. What an appalling expression. Nobody has a right to hate or should ever hate. There is no reason for it. I recall the war in Rwanda, where a gentleman seized a radio station and poured out hatred for two or three years until it eventually boiled over into outright violence and 500,000 people were beheaded as a result. It is all very fine to identify something afterwards and say it was unfortunate but that happened to people. I compliment the Minister of State for dealing with the issue of the use of hate. We do not have to hate. If we wish to hate, by all means, we should look in the mirror any morning and hate away. That is my answer. The suggestion to a radio station that a person wishes to hate and wishes to be allowed to do so and say so is wrong. It gets away from the subject, undermines our society and does us damage. We can choose that if we wish to.

The old hidden one is about racism. One hears people say on a regular basis that they are not racist but they do not like people of a different colour, religion or background, vulnerable people or people with disabilities. What an appalling attitude to have in a so-called civilised society, in this enlightened time, when we have all the evidence in the world of what hatred and hate speech has done and what hatred has eventually ended up in.

One would not have to wait too long. The evidence is already there.

This is a great opportunity to concentrate on the problematic issues in and around our capital city. I do not want to stop at that. Other speakers referred to antisocial behaviour. We have that all over the country in every town and village. The threat exists in estates all over the country, where women and vulnerable people are regularly targeted in an appalling way. They are set upon and identified as being legitimate targets. We have constant reports, through our various offices, of incidents that take place daily and nightly. Older people are terrified to walk across the road. Their doors are barred and barricaded from an early hour at night because they are afraid. Fear is the other thing that we need to confront. There is no need to try to push it under the carpet or ignore it. We need to address and identify whatever causes the fear in such a way as to deal with it meaningfully. We have an opportunity to do so.

I know there are several local authorities on which this impinges, that is, in Dublin, the greater Dublin area, in the adjoining counties and all over the country. I do not accept the notion that if we had one authority in Dublin, this would all disappear. We have to co-operate with one another nationwide to deal with the issues, which have to be dealt with on an ongoing basis as they appear. We should not just have a look at them and then spend six months or six years deciding what would be best to do. We have to deal with it now.

To have the opportunity to discuss the issues this evening is important. It gives an opportunity to everybody who has a role to play, including us. We mention how politicians rise every so often and point out these things but that is not what happens at all. The public are concerned. They approach the people who they elected and expect them to do something about it, to bring it to a head and to deal with it. Let us not make excuses that we cannot upset certain people because, if we mention them, they get upset. That is tough. Many people are living in fear. Either we do something about it and respond to it or we hand it over.

Mayor Giuliani of New York famously claimed credit for zero tolerance. In fact, that was not his doing at all, but that of one of his predecessors, Mayor Koch, who dealt a fatal blow to the ganglands and big guys who were dealing all the time, enforcing, threatening and making millions out of illegal activity. He set them to one side. It was not acknowledged to any great extent, as we know often happens in politics. The fact is that he did it and it had an effect, to such an extent that you do not see anything like the same level of activity. I know there are still illegal activities in the United States but he dealt with that one. Our job is to deal with our issues in whatever way possible, to be helpful and to be supportive, but to be firm at the same time and not take excuses for things that go wrong and are seen to go wrong.

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