Swords plagued by anti-social behaviour, says Kelly

The most recent meeting of Fingal County Council has heard of a wave of anti-social behaviour on the streets of Swords.

Independent councillor Darren Jack Kelly has requested a report from the CEO of Fingal County Council after personally seeing instances of anti-social behaviour in Swords.

“I’m aware that there is anti-social behaviour in other towns in Fingal, night and day.”

Kelly cited an incident where a group of teenagers gathered outside a fast food restaurant in Swords and intimidating and swearing at passers-by.

Kelly also noted an incident where people “attacked each other with hammers,” saying that locals were in “fear.”

“Anti-social behaviour is on the rise in Fingal; we need more policing, especially outside late-night venues at weekends.”

He said that alcohol and drug abuse is fueling the rise in anti-social behaviour.

He also called on more community policing, saying it would act as a deterrence to anti-social behaviour locally.

Labour councillor James Humphreys backed the motion, saying it was “unfortunate” that such a motion even had to come before the council.

“Once upon a time, we had joint policing committees where there were an abundance of councillors engaging with guards and other local community groups.”

“The very fact that they’ve been replaced with local community safety partnerships is just another way that local government has been eroded by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.”

Independents4Change councillor Dean Mulligan said anti-social behaviour is “beyond a joke.”

“We have instances of groups of youths vandalising public toilets,” he told the meeting.

“Even with garda resources, some of these young people aren’t afraid of the gardaí in any way; they are more inclined to take their phone out and hurl abuse at the gardaí.”

Mulligan told the meeting “the reality is if someone is under 18, unless they commit a serious crime, they don’t believe that any of the punitive measures will affect them. We need to look at how we prevent crime and engage with people who commit anti-social behaviour.”

“We need to encourage more people to join the gardaí, but we also need to give the gardaí more resources to be more proactive.”

Independent councillor Tony Murphy “we have to be very wary of how we project the image of the town, but also be realistic about how we could prevent anti-social behaviour.”

“We spoke before about CCTV around the area, you have the night-time economy which has been greatly impacted by anti-social behaviour in the area.”

Murphy suggested getting feedback from members of the Dublin/Fingal Chamber to hear about how local businesses have been affected by anti-social behaviour.

“I think collaboration is needed; gardaí have limited resources, we all know that, but we like to think they can build on that and do more. There is a serious lack of respect for gardaí today which is a problem.”

“Unfortunately, for some reason, there isn’t that respect. It’s very challenging for them to do their job.”

Murphy called for a “helicopter” approach, which involved getting local businesses, gardaí and local residents to give their feedback on how to tackle the issue going forward.

Kelly thanked his fellow councillors for backing the motion, saying the time to act was now before something “tragic” takes place.

The motion will now see Fingal County Council write to the chief executive and request a report on anti-social behaviour in Swords for the years 2022, 2023 and 2024.

Once the gardaí provide their response, the council will then decide next steps on the issue.

In December 2022, a temporary measure, which saw a four-person community garda unit installed in Swords, was agreed upon at a joint policing committee meeting with the unit being wound down in September 2023.

Superintendent Ronan Barry said at the time that the measure could only be temporary as the gardaí had resourcing issues caused by a wave of retirements and resignations.

On December 13, 169 gardaí were sworn in, with a further 277 garda recruits currently undergoing training.

96 of the 169 new gardaí will be deployed to the Dublin region.

Garda commissioner Drew Harris said, “an Garda Síochána will succeed not by force of arms or numbers, but on their moral authority as servants of the people.”