Dáil debates
Thursday, 20 November 2025
Saincheisteanna Tráthúla - Topical Issue Debate
Antisocial Behaviour
9:15 am
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
I thank the Minister of State for his response. I call for anybody who has any information on any of these incidents, particularly in my area of Dublin Bay North, to report them to Coolock Garda station. We must get to the bottom of this.
By way of more background on Darndale Park, I received an email from a teacher in Our Lady Immaculate school in Darndale. She states: "The playground located behind the school has been closed on over 600 children between the two schools and the Jigsaw crèche. [They] have missed out on the chance to play there since May." They continue to miss out on that chance. Darndale is a long-standing area and one with deprivation. It is beyond belief that people would do that to their own communities.
The eco toilets in St. Anne's Park were put in mainly for the use of underage girls' teams. There are no changing facilities on that edge of the park. It meant teams coming from afar to play on the pitches in St. Anne's Park would have toilets to use. Those toilets were wrecked.
In the case of Kilmore, all my council colleagues, and I was on the council until last year, campaigned for that playground for a long time. They badgered the city council into delivering a playground in Kilmore Park. Within weeks of it opening, the city council had to lock it because it had been damaged.
It is kind of depressing. I am a fairly reasonable and rational person but this stuff makes me angry. Communities deserve to have decent facilities. People deserve to be able to play and enjoy the outdoors in facilities like these. They are used by many different people and groups in so many different ways. The one thing they all share is that they use them for enjoyment. Now they have been wrecked. I appreciate the Minister of State's comments on the number of incidents. It looks like something else is going on here. I reinforce that point and ask again that, as he suggested, the Minister take it up in the Department to try to get to the bottom of it.
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