City centre being policed on overtime, Soc Dems says

Local Social Democrats held a meeting about what can be done to improve public safety in Dublin City Centre last week.

Councillors Cat O’Driscoll and Tara Deacy, TD Gary Gannon and European candidate Sinéad Gibney discussed what could be done to improve standards in Dublin City Centre in a public meeting held at the Wynn Hotel on Abbey Street.

The meeting heard from members of the public who expressed concerns about not feeling safe in Dublin City Centre.

A meeting attendee said they have lived in the city centre for over a decade and said “they never felt as unsafe” as they have over the last year.

Gannon said that Taoiseach Simon Harris’ boasts of being “tough on law and order” are “embarrassing.”

“That kind of posturing is not what the city centre needs,” he told Northside People, and said that a more proactive solution was needed.

He referred to the much-hyped Garda station on O’Connell Street as a “shop front” that merely creates the illusion of safety.

“You cannot police a city on overtime,” he said, and said that the Garda solution to ease anxiety after November’s riots was to “increase overtime for officers.”

“There are different solutions to policing,” Gannon noted, and said that he wasn’t in favour of gardaí “going in with batons”.

He repeated his calls for Dublin to have a metropolitan style of policing, similar to what is seen in other European cities, and called for the creation of a Dublin-specific task force that was led by the Taoiseach.

He said that members of the public need to know that the State “has their backs” and people “need to be listened to.”

Deacy said that there are instances of Gardaí commuting into Dublin from commuter towns in Meath as they cannot afford to live in Dublin, indicating that Garda resources are “overstretched.”

“It’s time we created a local authority that has real teeth,” she said.

O’Driscoll said that whenever a foreign dignitary visits Áras an Uachtaráin, Cabra garda station gets drafted in as a relief station and to provide back-up.

In that case, should a member of the garda station no one would be there to pick up the phone.

The decline of local government was discussed at the meeting, with one audience member saying “25 years ago, the Council had a lot more power than it does now when it came to dealing with local crime. The power of local authorities has been drained over time and that has fed into this situation.”

Gibney, who will appear on the ballot for Europe, said that a data-informed, evidence-based solution was the best way to tackle the situation.

Gibney said that contrary to popular belief, what happens in Brussels can inform what happens on the streets of Dublin.

She said that there are a number of European Union projects that are dedicated to sharing information and data from other countries, which in turn can inform the likes of Dublin City Council and the Irish government as to how to police city centres.

“We are at a critical moment in Irish society, and it is all too easy for us to follow the cultural path of the UK and the US when it comes to crime,” she said.

“When you’re discussing crime, it is important to treat people with dignity,” she said.

“The face of who is poor in society is changing, for that reason, it is crucial that we build a sense of community solidarity.”