Is Dublin a dangerous city?

0:00Lunchtime Live with Andrea Gilligan on News Talk. You might have heard that there's an investigation into a shooting incident happened on the south side of Dublin City in the early hours of Wednesday morning. It happened at a residential premises near the community centre on the Blue Bell Road in Dublin, but it's actually the third shooting in that area of Dublin within the past ten days with petrol, bomb attacks also occurring during a pretty difficult week. And Sinn Fein Councillor for the Bally Firmish, Drymna area and Chair of the local community safety forum, Dahi Dulan is with me here on the programme. I mean, three such incidents in just ten days, Dahi. I mean, it's a difficult situation. What's been done to support the local community? Well, thanks for having me on Andrea. First of all, I just want to say these attacks were all wrong. They shouldn't have happened and they're unacceptable.

1:02The communities we live in are wonderful communities. Well, good families, hard working families trying to improve quality life for everybody. And the gun attacks and the petrol bomb attacks were absolutely wrong. And those people involved need attacks. They need to step back. They need to be conscious of the stress, the strain that they are putting our communities under and it's unacceptable. And I've called on two occasions now that the Minister for Justice Kimmel Callan needs to be in the meeting with all the next representatives, senior Gary and other stakeholders in the community to see how we can work together and resolve the programme to tackle the causes and the consequences of this violence. This violence is wrong. There's nothing normal about us, but it is having a deeply negative impact on our community. This violence traumatises families, traumatises residents, the traumatises, all the people and vulnerable people and it's wrong. And I think the community cannot be left simply to deal with it themselves. We don't have the ability to wear it all. This is a guard issue, but not exclusively guard it. We need the Minister for Justice to step up to the challenge.

2:04She's been very silent on this issue. This violence is intense. It's in a small part of Dublin. And surely we have to wear it all to the causes and consequences of this and the support of the community moving forward. I mentioned the investigations underway. The guards leading those in relation to the three separate incidents that we talked about and just over the course of a week, Tahi. But what is the appropriate programme? We can't have guards on every street to prevent this. No one is not talking about this. We don't want guards on every street. What I do think if people do come into the city centre, they'll see guards on every street corner in Dame Street, Dublin, Castles, City Hall, there's a saturation guardie in there to facilitate the EU presidency. And I understand fully me there, a guard of programme finance. But it seems to be at the cost of ordinary communities. And the good people I represent here in Valley Farmer and in Dremna deserve the same protection, the same presence and the same gut number of guardies to protect and serve the people

3:05in Bluebell, in Dremna, in Walk and Stown, and in Valley Farmer. And it doesn't seem to be happening. Well, you don't know necessarily that those resources have been drafted away from anyone particular district. Well, in fact, we know that the guard resources have been drafted in the city centre. Yeah, and I know so much how it's previously told about that. No, actually, I have to say, we know for the fact that guard resources have been taken from local districts and brought into the town centre. And not those that are off duty at that period are on rest days. You know, we are fully aware of the statistics provided which old daddy have been brought into the city centre and is it years? Very clearly, it seems to be at the cost of local communities. But look, we are where we are. We need to move forward. And that's why I've called on the Minister for Justice because ultimately the box snaps with him that he needs to work with us, assure us and provide resources to make sure that these crimes are investigated and resources put in place to tackle the causes and consequences.

4:08But there's nothing normal about this. No community should have to live with this. This violence appears to be spreading. It's happening now in nearly every second and third day. We're lucky nobody's been seriously injured or worse. And I really don't want to be coming on the news in a few days or a few weeks dealing with a much more serious situation. We can deal with it now if we're given the support and the resources in the Minister, the Guaradi and other people. This is a whole community approach needed, Andre, to make sure our communities are safe, welcoming places for everybody. No, we should have to live with the press. No, one incident is one incident too many and yet you're obviously talking specifically about three different incidents. One incident has been a number of those three incidents. There's been a number of petrol bomb attacks and those types of bomb attacks I know, as I spoke into the residents, affects the whole community. It's not but the whole community. It terrorizes the whole community and particularly those who are vulnerable, those old living on the road. And we shouldn't have to live like that in a 24th century European capital. We have the resources.

5:08We have the personnel that use them wisely to protect and serve our community. Okay. Just when you mentioned that, stay with me, Dahee, for a moment because Mary is with us on the line. It's always 7, 1400, 106 is the number. Mary, you're living in the Dremna area. How are locals feeling there? I know it at the moment after these recent attacks. Well, to be honest, I haven't heard of them and I haven't heard among my neighbours, people who have heard of them. Now, I'm not, you know, sort of chatting with my neighbours every day but the sort of cross talk that you hear up at the camera during the shops or on your way to or there on the lowest or on the boss. I haven't heard anything about that. And you feel safe in the area yourself, Mary, you do? Oh, I do. I mean, I'm a profile that's just been described. I'm in my late 70s. I live alone.

6:09I would be there for I was considered vulnerable. But I think the vulnerability that myself and people like me feel in this area is more about the worry of want of how it's going to, he's in bills are going to affect us in the winter of how trying to stress your pension now is affected people in terms of what they can and can eat or are they going to be able to give it Christmas to their grandkids or what. It's the stress of the priorities that the government seems to say for all the time that the stress of people is more than the criminal. I know the very bad people out there, of course, they're under doing criminal action and have been for a long time, but it's the day today. It's the day today that's we're stressing worry in you Mary. We're stressing off. Okay. Okay. Well, that's a point worth highlighting as well. Ardash is with us on the program. You're in the sort of the area we're talking about Ardash. Is that right?

7:10Yes. Correct. And, you know, just listening to Dahi describe the scene over the past week and a half. How are you feeling? It's a mixed feeling to be honest. I have been here since 2018 when I came with my wife or my masters and we have made lovely friends here in Northern Ireland ourselves. We have had really good experiences as well, but again, you know, a few of them really stragged out and generally speaking, it's a thought that we always have in mind while leaving home when let's say going out for a walk, even for groceries, we always mind, you know, where we are going. What kind of, you know, gentry there is near around us because I felt that sometimes we can be targeted in a sense knowing that we're not like we're not becoming from somewhere outside and it's very easy to make make out. And that's, you know, we have felt through the experiences that some of the times we have been targeted and in terms of safety when you ask, you know, we have to now kind of think

8:15what time we're leaving our home, which place we are going, maybe keeping an eye out on the road far to the road. If there's some kind of, you know, group present, we try to change the direction, maybe across the side of the road, stuff like that, and which is not something that you would like to do to be doing, you know, when you're going out of your home. Do you have kind of that feeling of being vulnerable, Arda, should we? Yes, exactly. And I would see like walking on the park, I would see that, you know, a lot of people, they're walking along with us and they're doing their own, you know, walking and having a good walk. But again, you know, once there's, let's say, group of kids, especially these are the most, you know, we feel vulnerable from because they can easily kind of make out and they'll not be saying stuff to other people. Let's say people who belong from who are born in Ireland or come from near-around, but as soon as they see, you know, us, we are being targeted and it has happened quite a few times and it's not just me.

9:16It's not just me, it's a lot of friends, people I know who have come to us, like come along with us when we came to Ireland for our masters and then, you know, try to build a life here, a safe life here. And same incidents keep repeating. And like we always, you know, we would not love to talk about that, but we always have some common incident that everyone can say, oh, yeah, that happened with me as well. And have you yourself, your tradition and your family, like you've directly experienced this, I take us? Directly, yes, exactly. Some of the incidents were like properly targeted at us and even some of the incidents I went back to the garter station and informed them about this because that's the best I could do and no response whatsoever. No response. And do you mind me asking you, like, do you feel comfortable maybe telling us a little bit about those, those in some different way? Yeah, one of the ones, one of the ones which was PD, which really stuck with me for a long, long time and I had to change our lives as well. It was, we were walking just on the park beside our home and we used to do a lot of work.

10:19I am a person who loves to at least walk around in the morning, afternoon in the evening with family and we were walking. My mom had visited me from India and my mother and my wife, so four of us walking on the park and there was loads of people. It's a summers and there's loads of people in the park so you would not feel that you're a carnage. But all of a sudden there's this group of kids, they see us, started following us, doing some racial abusing and stuff. That was still fine. We were just ignoring and, you know, mining our way, start walking a bit fast and that's when we started seeing, you know, stuff being thrown at us, stones and pieces of bits fallen on the ground. Oh, God. And the moment I confronted them, I asked them, please stop doing this. They even like, they broke all help, broke loose and one of these stones hit the back of my mom's head. Oh, God. Yeah. Yeah. That's one of the ones like I think the, and since then we changed this fact that we stop going to the parks anymore. Like we don't go to walk. Just stop going to the parks completely because of this.

11:20Yeah. And her mom over, you know, visiting you and the family in a holiday and this is her out memory. Yeah. She was even concerned like when, now when she talks to us from back from India, she's like, please don't go out on walks to the park. Please, if you want to go, go somewhere safe, go drive your car somewhere far away and maybe if you feel safe, go there rather than, you know, doing the same, like having the same incident, repeat all over again. Do you feel safe here? Yeah. It's not like it's all negative. We have had, you know, as I said, you know, we have made really good friends and relate and share it as well. But these are, I think the biggest thought that always sticks around in mind is whenever we see, especially the young kids, the younger audience on the streets in a shopping near in a shopping mall on the roads, on the parks, it is a worry for us because that's what I've seen is, is really unmonetored. There's no steps really you can take as well because I have heard from a lot of, we

12:22are immigrants, we become from outside. We recently, I got recently got my citizenship, I got my passport done. So, but again, you know, to feel like community, you need to, you know, know these stuff and or growing up all those last eight, nine years, all I've heard is when you see young kids, there's no law around it. So please just mind your way, turn around, walk somewhere else, don't try to, you know, talk to them, make sense out of what they're speaking and that's all I know. But again, you know, once your family is in risk and danger, that's a very negative thought. It is. And look, I know that's difficult for you to tell us about that today and we appreciate how does she get in and touch to share that, was your mom was okay? Well, she was, she was, she was, I think a bit of bleeding from the back of the head and she was still more focused on that I don't retaliate. I don't go back to talk to them or confront them, what they have done. So she was more worried for me even when she was bleeding. God, love her. And you know, just when you say that and sorry to hear that experience and not a listener

13:24is getting in touch, childish, which is lovely, I think to, you know, to see today if people get in touch to say I'm so sorry that our addition is family hit to, you know, experience, like and tolerate this, this kind of behavior and God, it really even seems worse when it's from young children to behave and like this, like another text says, I actually, I've adopted two children of color and of experience that in the cromland areas as this listener. Another text tells me, as somebody from Ireland, I too feel very vulnerable in my own home and I have to be conscious of walking on the streets and I will not leave my home after dark. If I go for a run, I feel I can't avail of the local park. I run in circulation around the front of my home with a neighbor actually watching me says this listener. So like, you can hear it. I know you're on talk and today about the Valley Firm, a dream, the area, but sure, it's much broader. Oh, it is. I mean, and also I, I, I chair the local community safety plan, I share for the whole of Dublin South Central. So I'm a, I'm very aware of the challenges we face and I'm glad Mary doesn't feel fear. We, we want that experience for everybody.

14:25I know where Mary lives. I live in Firmland myself. So I know the area very well. That's a great community. But also we need to acknowledge our dishes. Is actual experience, the other one. Yes, and what I'd like to say to people there is we are absolutely committed on the community safety plan. So absolutely committed to making our communities welcome safe places for everybody. And I mean everybody. And we are putting together the glad to conform with yourself and there are three are planned in the area to achieve that. We're going to be the, the priorities are tackling domestic violence, protecting public spaces, packing drug relations, intimidation, community cohesion and working with our young people. They're the five priorities we set ourselves. We're having a series of public meetings and engagements over the next month. To see how to do everybody. Yeah, everybody to get involved, be compared to this. This is your plan. It's not my plan. I'm, I'm the chair of this. I have oversight, but I want to make sure that everybody in Dublin South Central, at least in Dublin South Central and hopefully across the great city of Dublin feels proud

15:27of the city. I'm not going to vote and want to make it. I like that people, people want to go along and get involved in that for sure. Another listener got in touch to tell me, I just think in general Dublin is much more dangerous than it used to be. I don't feel safe in the city center when it's dark. I'd rather get a taxi than walk to a bus stop. This listener says, I'm a middle aged man. I'm listening to Mary and Ardash and Dahi today. The problem is that you never know what's coming for you at every corner that you turn. There just, there's actually streets that even as a middle aged man, I avoid completely. Email if you want to share your story with us. Launch time live at newstop.com. We leave it there for the moment. Ardash thanks a million for sharing your experience. Mary as well. And Sinn Fein, counsellor for the Dremna, a Bally Firmett area. Chair of the local safety forum. That's Dahi Dulan with us on the programme too. Launch time live with Andrea Gilligan. Weekdays at midday. On news talk. Conversation that counts.