Madam, - I live in Dublin's north inner city on the end of a terrace with a lane beside it. Last Sunday night we had a barbecue. At midnight, as people were starting to leave, a teenager walking with his friends in the lane threw a stone, hitting me in the face. Enraged, I ran outside to confront them. Two of them beat me to the ground with broom handles, full force to the head.
Their friends watched and jeered. I got up and ran back to the house, just. We brought everyone inside from the garden, rang the Garda and turned off the lights in the kitchen. Pop! The kitchen window shattered. Cut face, cauliflower ear, split scalp, scrapes and bruises on the rest of me - I was lucky.
The gardaí who arrived at the door were very pleasant. They advised me to go to hospital (I didn't fancy A&E on a bank holiday, though) and took descriptions that I could barely provide - I just remember the sticks. We told them where the gang was headed for. I offered to go with them in the car to see if my battered face might make any of my brave attackers especially jumpy. The gardaí advised against this as the gang might then target our house, but they did say they'd take a drive around to look for any gangs looking suspicious (presumably wielding broom handles). Their implicit message was very simple: there's nothing we can do.
Until recent years most people were confident that the Garda Síochána could provide a reasonable level of public safety. This is no longer the case. Gardaí don't venture into some areas and housing estates because it's too dangerous. Gangs roam the streets, marching, swaggering, carrying weapons, concealed or otherwise, looking for excitement. And gardaí say their hands are tied.
I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the idea of gardaí on the beat carrying guns as a matter of course, but I would like to see them patrolling after dark on the streets and in vehicles, going into exactly the areas where bad things happen to them and us. If the only safe way of doing this is to give them sidearms, then please untie those hands.
Isn't it time we sent out a message that random street violence by young men will not be tolerated any longer, before we then try to save the sons these men will father?
- Yours, etc,
NICK McGINLEY, Dublin 7.