Dáil debates

Thursday, 6 May 2021

Saincheisteanna Tráthúla - Topical Issue Debate

Anti-Social Behaviour

8:20 pm

Photo of Paul McAuliffePaul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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As Covid forced many people in society to withdraw from our public spaces, unfortunately, levels of antisocial behaviour crept in. As we head into a period when, hopefully, things will begin to open again and we will make greater use of our outdoor spaces, I and many other Members of this House want to make sure that they are safe places to be. Unfortunately, over recent weeks and months, we have seen an increase in incidents and high-profile incidents, in particular, of antisocial behaviour. I want to be very careful in saying that while some of these incidents involved young people, they are in no way emblematic of young people in Ireland, or of society as a whole.

What is the Government doing to tackle this issue? It is critically important to support traders, communities and people who have been restricted for so long, so that when they come back into circulation, they can do so in a safe place. We have seen the incidents reported online. A young lady was pushed off the platform of a train station. There have been incidents in Malahide with cars being attacked by groups of people. There was a looting incident in my area, in a place one would never see such an incident.

What can be done to tackle this issue? The youth justice strategy, which the Department of Justice has brought forward, is an important step. The antisocial behaviour forum, which Minister of State, Deputy Browne, chairs, is an important forum. In fact, it has been quite successful in dealing with its first issue, namely, scrambler bikes, which Members will be tired of hearing me talking about. It has dealt comprehensively with that issue. I urge the forum to move on and look at how we can ensure we have safe public spaces.

That needs to be done in two ways. We need a significant increase in gardaí and in the number of on-foot gardaí. I realise that is an operational matter, but it is something we need to communicate to the Commissioner. We need high-profile policing and greater visibility of policing in our communities. Our community gardaí do fantastic work, but there are blockages in the system. My station in Finglas had a fantastic community sergeant, John O'Reilly, to whom our community paid great credit. Unfortunately, for us, he has been promoted and we await a replacement for him. We must ensure those vacancies are not left for a significant period.

The Minister of State knows about the campaigning work we have done in Ballymun and the Ballymun – A Brighter Future report, which suggested increasing the number of gardaí by a factor of approximately 50 because it has one of the lowest representations of gardaí. We must also invest in youth services, ensure cutbacks made almost a decade ago are addressed as a priority, ensure street work and outreach work helps those young people who are most in need and ensure we reach those communities and households where people are engaging in antisocial behaviour. Will the Minister of State update the House on the work the Government is doing on this issue and do everything it can to tackle it?

Photo of Frank FeighanFrank Feighan (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputy McAuliffe for raising this important issue. An inevitable impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the public health restrictions, which we put in place in order to control the transmission of the virus, has been a significantly decreased public presence on city centre streets during the last year. I fully appreciate this has resulted in some of those who need to be in the city centre at times feeling less safe due to this reduced footfall. The absence of activities, which would usually be available to young people outside of school hours, has in some locations led to increases in antisocial behaviour among these age groups. The Minister, Deputy Humphreys, is acutely aware of the impact this and, indeed, any antisocial behaviour has on local communities. An Garda Síochána has continued to roll out information-led policing operations in response to specific incidents of antisocial behaviour throughout the pandemic. It has also continued Operation Spire and Operation Pier, which specifically target antisocial behaviour, public order offences and street-level drug dealing in Dublin city centre. These operations are supplemented by the continually high-visibility patrols in support of the public health regulations, which can and do respond to antisocial behaviours.

Deputy McAuliffe may be interested to note that the Garda authorities have reported that statistics in April show a decrease of 11% in public order offences in the year to date. While clearly a significant element of this drop can be attributed to the public health restrictions, the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, is encouraged by the ongoing efforts to prevent antisocial behaviour. It is important we continue to do all we can to tackle such behaviour.

Both the programme for Government and the Justice Plan 2021 include a number of actions to tackle antisocial behaviour and to enhance community safety. The Minister of State, Deputy Browne, and the Minister, Deputy McEntee, recently launched the new Youth Justice Strategy 2021-2027, which provides a framework to prevent offending behaviour and divert children and young adults away from crime. The immediate priority within the strategy is to enhance engagement with children and young people who are most at risk of involvement in criminal activity, principally by strengthening the service available through the existing network of 105 Garda youth diversion projects across the State.

In line with a commitment in the programme for Government, the Minister of State, Deputy Browne, has also established the antisocial behaviour forum, providing an additional mechanism to focus on the factors that give rise to antisocial behaviour and to identify potential solutions. As Deputy McAuliffe is aware, the Department of Justice has recently committed to providing funding to communities to deliver projects in response to the antisocial use of scramblers and quad bikes, following consideration of this topic by a subgroup of the forum. The Minister, Deputy Humphreys, is committed to building on the existing momentum to deliver the various justice plan actions with a view to dealing with the antisocial behaviour in an effective and informed way.

I thank Deputy McAuliffe for our recent engagement with his Ballymun task force. There are many issues which we can work collaboratively on across Government. I also saw those issues regarding antisocial behaviour on social media. They were horrific and lives could have been lost at the rail station. It sends out the wrong message and it is something I hope we can address across the Department of Justice, An Garda Síochána and the various forums, as quickly as possible.

Photo of Paul McAuliffePaul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the Minister of State’s comprehensive response to the issue I raised. It is fair to say that while the numbers are lower, the visibility of those incidents is much greater. We must ask ourselves why they are more visible during Covid time. With less international and national news, the stories of these individuals are coming to the fore, but in many ways those stories were there during busier news cycles. Those incidents are being told in Covid times.

It is really important that as life gets busier, we do not forget the victims of antisocial behaviour because when people experience it, in particular older people when they go outdoors, it shakes their confidence in their community, in their neighbours and in the people around them.

At a very low level it can be a gang of young people at a shop who intimidate them into going in. Often that is just about both groups understanding each other. That is not the antisocial behaviour I am talking about. I am talking about the kind of pernicious and destructive antisocial behaviour that can vary from open drug dealing to aggressive begging and all those other issues. We need to deal with the social problems behind these things but we also need to make sure the streets are safe. That is not a matter for this House. The matter for this House is the resourcing of the Garda. Ensuring our spaces are safe is an operational matter for the Garda. I know the Garda does everything it can but I urge it to pay particular attention to open spaces, our public realm and to ensuring people feel safe in what is a great city here in Dublin, as well as in other public spaces right across the country.

8:30 pm

Photo of Frank FeighanFrank Feighan (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy is justifiably concerned about antisocial behaviour in Dublin and its effects on local communities. Antisocial behaviour can radically change the complexion of where each of us calls home and can make us feel distressed and unhappy. It can pose a serious threat to community safety and weaken collective resilience. Strong community engagement and services are critical in reducing and preventing antisocial behaviour. This is central to the comprehensive community safety policy currently being developed by the Department of Justice, based on the recommendations of the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland. This policy will underpin the new policing, security and community safety Bill, the general scheme of which was published last week.

Community safety is not just the responsibility of An Garda Síochána and the challenges communities face are not limited to policing issues. Bringing the right services together and working with each other to tackle the underlying issues that impact on a community and people's sense of safety within the community is key. The new legislation will place an obligation on Departments, State agencies and local authorities to co-operate with An Garda Síochána in delivering community safety. A key element of this framework will be the establishment of local community safety partnerships nationwide to develop local safety plans tailored to the priorities and needs of individual communities. Three pilot schemes are currently being developed in Dublin's north inner city, Waterford and Longford and will run for the next two years, ahead of a nationwide roll-out to all local authority areas. These partnerships will provide a strong forum to identify and tackle the issues causing antisocial behaviour in local areas, both in Dublin and throughout the country.