TAOISEACH LEO VARADKAR has said people are being “attacked all the time” on Irish streets as he acknowledged it will be “very hard” to meet the target of recruiting 1,000 gardaí this year.
He also said that telling people to avoid certain areas in Dublin or calling certain streets dangerous “is the wrong approach” to take.
Speaking to reporters this afternoon, he said there has been a lot of conversations had this week about high profile attacks on visitors from Ukraine and from the United States.
Last week, a US tourist was left in a serious condition after he was attacked by a number of people on Talbot Street in Dublin City.
A Ukrainian actor was hospitalised after being glassed and bitten during an unprovoked assault in Dublin city centre last month.
The Taoiseach said Irish people are attacked on the streets of the capital every day, but when there is an attack on a visitor to Ireland it often garners more attention.
“Sometimes when it’s somebody from overseas, it gets more coverage than when its an Irish person, but there sadly are Irish people resident in this country being attacked all the time on our streets, and that’s not something that we can accept,” he said.
Relative to many other countries in the world, “Ireland is a safe place’, Varadkar maintained.
“You know, we’ve got a relatively low murder rate, for example. But that’s not enough. We can’t just say, ‘well that’s okay.’ Because it isn’t, and a lot of people don’t feel safe on our streets. And they don’t feel safe on the streets because they’ve heard of things that have really happened. It’s not just a perception, it is rooted in reality.
“And that’s why we need to redouble our efforts in this regard. More garda recruitment; tougher sentences, enabling the courts and the prison service to do that, community safety partnerships, improvement in the urban landscape: lighting and CCTV.”
Varadkar said people should feel safe walking at night in our towns and cities. He said:
We shouldn’t be telling people that x area y area is dangerous and you shouldn’t go there. That’s totally the wrong approach.
“You have to make sure that all public places in our cities and towns are safe for people to walk at night,” said Varadkar.
Increasing garda numbers and visibility of gardaí on the street is one solution, with Varadkar stating that he is not giving up on the recruitment targets set.
He acknowledged that the government’s 1,000 garda recruit target for this year is going to be “very hard” to meet.
“It is going to be difficult I think to reach that 1,000 target but we are not departing from it, certainly not yet,” he said.
However, his comments differ from his Minister for Justice Helen McEntee, who told The Journal last week:
So in terms of the numbers, unfortunately, no, we won’t reach those numbers.
The minister said it has taken longer than she would like for the “wheel to start moving and to see that steady inflow of newer members in Templemore”.
Varadkar said there are suggestions to increase the training allowance for Garda recruits, as well as allowing gardaí retire later as well looking at the possibility allowing people join the force past the age of 35.
The Taoiseach said 35 “isn’t that old anymore, especially when you’re 44″.
He said 200 people over 35 applied to become gardaí this year and weren’t able to be considered.
A lot of people have told the Taoiseach they feel Irish cities have deteriorated during the pandemic period and that it has never come back to the level of safety felt previously.
“We have to fix that because it’s a basic entitlement, that people should feel safe walking at night in our towns and cities,” he said.
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