The Government had a duty to provide law and order every weekend of the year and not just "when we have visitors from Europe", the Fine Gael leader said yesterday as a survey showed that four in five people believed Dublin's streets were unsafe after dark. Marie O'Halloran reports
Criticising the Government's failure to provide the promised 2,000 extra gardaí, Mr Enda Kenny said just 121 had been trained.
There had been an unprecedented level of security in Dublin for the EU accession ceremonies and the Government had "an obligation to ensure the security and safety of our citizens and visitors from Europe".
But the Government "has failed completely to protect citizens, including the young men and women of this city, from thugs, villains, unprovoked attacks and violence promoted by alcohol and substance abuse".
Mr Joe Higgins (Soc, Dublin West) was equally critical of the Government but because of the huge security operation at the weekend and the order "for the first time in the history of the State" to use water cannons against demonstrators.
He accused the Government of "setting out to thwart civil rights" and to "frighten people from their democratic right to protest and to keep numbers down at demonstrations against President Bush".
The Dublin West TD said that 23 young people had been arrested and charged with "extremely minor offences" in Dublin but "far more people were arrested at the rally of the lakes in Killarney during the same weekend and it did not take two-thirds of the Garda force and two water cannons to take care of the situation".
But Mr Smith said that everybody had been complimentary of Ireland and the way the events of the weekend were managed and he complimented the Garda and Defence Forces.
"The problem associated with the dissent of protesters was dealt with in an efficient and speedy manner with minimal problems for protesters," he insisted.
The MRBI poll about Dublin in yesterday's Irish edition of the Daily Mirror showed that "the level of fear is highest among 15 to 17-year-olds of whom 94 per cent are afraid to venture out after dark. Of this group, half know someone who has been attacked in the city centre in the past 12 months," said Mr Kenny.
To persistent opposition jeering and heckling, the Minister for Defence, Mr Smith, defended the Government's record on crime.
He said that "on the basis of our figures the level of crime is down", but "it remains at an unacceptably high level".
Mr Kenny said there were places Dublin citizens would love to walk in and enjoy but this was not possible due to what they said were "strange people who hang around, the level of drunkenness in the city centre, dodgy people and potential drug dealers who lurk in different areas".