Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

No one for a second believes that incidents of crime and assault should ever become the norm. The frustration on everyone else's part is that they have become the norm. The announcement of a task force only matters if in 12 weeks' time, or preferably tomorrow, when someone is being attacked on the street, there will be a garda who will be able to intervene quickly. Those are the brass tacks of it. Regardless of the operation - the Minister of State mentioned Operation Citizen and there have been any number of operations before that - the streets cannot be policed with crisis management.

Every single week without fail a video is sent to me by one of the business operators in the city centre either of open drug dealing or the stealing of bikes and inevitably there is an absence of any Garda response. I have no criticism of the gardaí who are there, but there are never enough. That is a failure and reflection of the State. Will the task force take that into consideration? Will the set number of gardaí be increased for the city centre? If not, what is the purpose of this task force?

I welcome the number of groups that will be around the table, but it will not matter unless the HSE is there with fully resourced detoxification beds to help people out of chronic addiction. Will we have, for example, the much talked about safe injection facility? That has been held up in politics and has not opened. That would make a difference. This task force will only matter if two things happen. Chronic open drug dealing is no longer tolerated and when people experience crime a garda will be present. What I am really fearful of is what inevitably happens when we have public attention on an incident. Crime gets pushed into the residential areas of Dorset Street or wherever beyond for a period. Then a residents' group emerges and it is pushed back into the city centre. We have had that cycle for the best part of four decades now.

Dublin needs Cabinet authority. In the absence of strong local government that is empowered, we need the Cabinet to take an interest in it. I will be vociferous in holding the Government's feet to the fire in terms of an interest in Dublin. Dublin has to be more than a public relations exercise. I fear that is what this task force will turn into.

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