Mary Fitzpatrick (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for coming to the House to debate the Fianna Fáil motion on crime and antisocial behaviour. I commend her, the Department, the gardaí and everyone who works to try and make our communities and our country safer. However, it would be completely disingenuous of me not to tell the Minister straight to her face that the people in Dublin city who I speak to every day, who I live with and who I engage with and talk to all the time, are really quite angry and upset over the level of antisocial behaviour and crime in Dublin city.They are sick to the back teeth of listening to antisocial behaviour and crime being linked directly with Dublin city on a daily basis. It is not the fault of the media; it is just a reality. People in Dublin want to live in a place they feel safe. Children want to walk to school feeling safe like in any other village or town in the country. People want to go to work and feel safe. They want to go out and socialise and feel safe. People of all ages in Dublin city do not feel like the city is safe. They are also quite annoyed at being told that it is a safe city and Ireland is a safe country, but there is a perceived lack of safety. That is really irritating people because the reality of it is that far too many citizens, visitors and workers have experienced antisocial behaviour and crime. They have been victims of it.

I would like the Minister to champion two specific asks. The first is small area policing and the second is real consequences for those who undermine public safety and the fabric of our society by undertaking acts of crime and antisocial behaviour. In terms of small area policing, we are specifically asking that the role of the community garda be absolutely confirmed and that community gardaí be assigned on a small area basis. We had this model a number of years back in the north inner city. Where community gardaí are assigned to an area, they know the people living and working in the area. They will know who is a stranger coming through an area. That has a real effect on support from the community for the gardaí, but also the Garda's effectiveness. They actually know who is who. One of the issues that came out of many of the investigations into crime and antisocial behaviour in the inner city over the summer was that many of the perpetrators were not from the inner city. They did not live there. They actually had no business being there. The reason they were there was that they were not known. They were able to get up to these activities and there was not an auntie or grannie or garda who would actually know who they were and tap them on the shoulder. It is really important, not just in the city but right around the country, that we have gardaí assigned on a geographic basis. I know the Garda is under pressure to recruit. We need to support it in that recruitment and we do.

I appreciate the extra funding the Minister has made available. It really is welcome, and the overtime is welcome. However, the Garda needs to move beyond this high-visibility policing. Gardaí are being taken, and I know this for a fact, from Cabra and Phibsborough through the Bridewell and Mountjoy into the inner city to create this high-visibility policing. That serves a purpose but in the long term, it will not work. What it does is take gardaí out of Cabra, Phibsborough and the surrounding areas. The Minister has our support to have effective policing and where that policing is in place, we want the perpetrators to experience real consequence for their actions.