Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I grew up in Dublin city, went to school and college here and have spent my life working in Dublin. I have lived all over different parts of Dublin and to see a bus burning on O'Connell Bridge and to see the scale of violence and people terrorised in their shops was heartbreaking.

I have also worked in youth justice since 2006 and know the Garda youth diversion programme has worked for 95% of the young people who come into it. It is incredibly effective but I feel I saw that night the 5% whom State interventions did not and cannot reach. They are compounded by the far right, which has been growing. I know this because I saw it in Ballybrack this July, when I had a month’s worth of violence and public order protests and disruption. I spoke to the Minister, Deputy McEntee, about it. I commend the response of the gardaí, who did everything they could to take the heat out of it and manage it as safely as possible for the community. Eventually, they needed a more forceful response. I commend Fergal Harrington and, in particular, Garry Deehan, the community gardaí, for their excellent response at that time.

It was also a time of political unity. I and my colleague Deputy Devlin, along with Deputy Boyd Barrett, Deputy Ossian Smyth and all the councillors, including the cathaoirleach, Denis O’Callaghan, came together and tried to manage this the best way we could in the interests of everybody in the community for that time and the time ahead, but also so as not to allow the far right a veto on who moves into Ballybrack.

Do Deputies know who was not there and did not help me? Sinn Féin. Sinn Féin had representatives locally, was active on the ground and had councillors in Killiney-Shankill. The only people who did not help me and did not help Deputies Boyd Barrett, Devlin and Smyth or the gardaí were Sinn Féin representatives. They had the opportunity to, with the community gardaí. They did not.

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