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

It is a rare privilege in any walk of life to be able to walk to work. I enjoy that luxury, which is one not many have, four or five times a week in this city. Many of us come to the Chamber from different directions of the city. I sometimes wonder if we come from different Dublins. When I leave my house in the morning, I start in Mountjoy Street and move on to Dorset Street down through Parnell Street, cutting through Moore Street up around the GPO and across O’Connell Bridge. I see a Dublin that I adore and have known since childhood, but it seems somewhat broken and something is amiss. I see the type of instances that make my city feel unsafe, which is the reason we are here today. I see huge levels of dereliction and people in the throes of addiction. It is no individual failure but there is a sense of a State which has been structurally violent in its oppression. I see young people acting out, which manifests in ways that many Deputies have spoken about today. I think of the old quote from, I think, Frankenstein: when all good to me be lost, “Evil thenceforth became my good”.

I do not see the necessary type of desire, drive and love for the city. We all recognise there will not be a uniquely policing solution to the issues we face. Not only must it be holistic, but it must come with a collective approach and from different angles because what makes my city unsafe - I am sure this is the case for cities the length and breadth of the country, as many Deputies have spoken about - is not only individuals but also the conditions. That has to be confronted, rather than marching in like Humpty Dumpty after an issue has arisen to say that someone must do something about it. It is not about talking tough, but about a constructive plan and a co-ordinated sense of what we are looking to achieve and how we go about doing that. Only through that kind approach will we achieve the outcome we all desire, namely a reduction in violence. We can talk tough about increased sentences - I appreciate that among the public and those who have experienced crime there may well be a sense for retribution and justice alone – but as legislators in this Chamber, we should look to see what reduces crime.

We ask much of the gardaí who serve on our streets. We agree that there is a collective sense among all of us that we need more gardaí. That was not always the case. Huge work has been done over the last decade especially to bring a sense of cohesion and foster better relationships. However, to continue that kind of approach the gardaí need resourcing. We can all be cheerleaders for more gardaí. The Minister has said we should look to get more people from our constituencies into the force, but he will understand that a garda on probation will have a salary of €32,000 to €33,000. That goes up over a decade to over €50,000. They cannot live in the city they are being asked to police on that wage. Regardless of how great the job is or how much it might bring honour to a person and their family, I do not think we can expect anyone who is on that type of wage and is asked to do the type of work we ask our gardaí to do to wake up in the morning and be excited about bills coming through their door which they will not be able to pay. We all know that - it is the fundamental reason we are struggling to bring gardaí into the service and so many younger gardaí are leaving the force. If we had a Garda retention officer, I am confident that is what would be captured. We can cheerlead, but we cannot deny the reality that people cannot afford to live in the areas we are asking them to police.

A number of people have raised issues around stop and search, and have said we need to advance stop and search. I understand calls for that from the public and I understand why it might be seen as a simple solution. I appreciate that where it is in effect now, it is having some results. However, I cannot support a policy that is not backed by data and where there is no effective oversight by a secondary organisation rather than those we are asking to do it. Someone who was stopped on the street and found to have a knife in their bag they could understand why they were stopped - that is where the approach is working well - but a young person who was stopped on the street and was not found to have a knife might have just cause in asking why they had been stopped. If they were stopped again the following day, they might ask what was going on. In other jurisdictions there has been profiling based on race and other aspects so if we are going to increase the use of stop and search, why not increase oversight alongside it? Then it would absolutely have my support. The same goes for facial recognition technology. These are great powers. Inevitably, we cannot stand in the way of what is already going to happen but surely good oversight of something like facial recognition is what we need. When that comes forward and the legislation comes through, the Minister needs to make sure we have the oversight mechanisms alongside them. These are most important conversations.

There are already concerns about Garda data logging and crime recording procedures. Those issues have been well discussed in the Chamber. The reliability of crime statistics does not give us a full understanding of what is happening in our communities. The PULSE system, which is supposed to be the backbone of Garda crime recording, has been under scrutiny for its inconsistencies, errors and gaps. When crimes are reported and not officially recorded, as in so many cases, it not only misleads the public but also creates a false sense of security. The Garda faces immense pressures but the State cannot fail to provide the means by which it can actively log incidents. This is necessary to ensure we do not distort the picture of crime in the country.

There are other areas in which I have been disappointed in recent months. After the terrible incident happened in Stoneybatter in my constituency, I raised it in the Dáil. The Minister asked who could have foreseen that a person could have been attacked in Stoneybatter at 3 o'clock on a Sunday. I had to step back and remember all the public meetings I attended in Stoneybatter over the last six months when communities were mobilising and saying somebody would be attacked. Inevitably, somebody was attacked. There are conditions which create not only a sense but a reality of unsafety in this city. Those conditions create places where people are more likely to get attacked than other places in the city. We have to understand the factors which cause this. For example, we have to understand the mental health crisis and try to legislate and act around that.

In the brief time I have left, I would like to speak about the inner city task force, which the Minister mentioned. I do not doubt for a second that the inner city task force received money where services have been cut. However, I cannot point to lots of successes. Drug dealing is still on the rise as is violent crime. The city centre task force, which I heard the Minister mention on the radio, has-----

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