Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I also extend sympathy and solidarity to the families of those precious lives that were lost in counties Mayo and Westmeath.

The fundamental problem we have here is that the Taoiseach is failing to face the actual reality on the ground, which is that there is not high-visibility policing in Dublin’s inner city. It is not there. The Taoiseach cited Pride and occasions where there are concerts and so on, which are well organised and I tip my hat to the Garda for that, but I am talking about the everyday reality of people who live in Dublin’s inner city. They will tell the Taoiseach to a man and woman that the gardaí are not visible or present and they are stretched beyond belief. They will tell him that they do not feel safe or that when there are incidents and they make that call, the response time is far too slow. That is the reality.

My colleague, Deputy O’Reilly, witnessed the aftermath of the assault on Neno Dolmajian. She was on site. She described it as utterly terrifying and horrific. That is not an isolated incident. This has happened before and this will happen again until there is a real step change in government. It is not enough for the Taoiseach to stand up and cite statistics. He has to deal with the real lived reality that the inner city is not safe and that communities living there do not feel safe. There need to be more gardaí, not simply an overtime allocation, and investment in communities. I do not see a serious approach at all from the Taoiseach or the Government. These so-called champions of law and order have left people really vulnerable and feeling very unsafe.

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