The deaths of Gardaí Tony Tighe and Michael Padden early on Sunday morning have generated a wave of both anger and sympathy throughout the community. There is anger at the needless and wasteful loss of two good lives and of two fine police officers.
There is sympathy - and it is heartfelt - for the families of the two gardaí and, indeed, for their colleagues in the force.
Much police work, by its nature, is routine and as such often tends to be taken for granted by the community. But it is always undertaken in conditions of latent or potential danger.These tragic and unnecessary deaths remind the community that the men and women who go out on duty each day and night are placing their lives on the line on behalf of the rest of us.
In this instance, the two gardaí who died were carrying out their duty of seeking to save fellow citizens from possible death or serious injury. But for their presence and the presence of colleagues on the Stillorgan Road, other early morning motorists would probably now be lying in a hospital morgue. Garda Tighe and Garda Padden literally gave their lives so that others might be spared death or serious injury.
The precise chain of events which led to the fatal collision between the stolen Mazda and the patrol car is still being reconstructed by investigators. But whatever the details, this tragedy fits clearly into the unacceptable pattern of crime and violence which now emerges nightly across virtually every Irish city and large town.
No pre-judgment should be made about the young people who caused this dreadful tragedy. But it is long past the time that this society started getting serious about the random violence which now confronts those who are so foolhardy as to be on the public street or highway in the nighttime hours.
The country is awash in a sea of alcohol and there is an almost ubiquitous drug culture. There is a widespread abandonment of parental responsibility. And while the criminal justice system has stepped up its levels of activity and increased its capacity, there is still a serious problem of under-enforcement. The failure of the State to provide sufficient and suitable places for care and containment of wayward young people is a blot on the record of successive governments. The Garda on the street is caught in the middle, literally taking the brunt of it and suffering the outrage of a citizenry that is baffled by it all.
It will get worse until the law compels parents to carry responsibility for their children's actions, until there is full and rigorous enforcement of the licensing acts and until public order offences are met with appropriate sentences. These may be in the form of draconian fines or custodial sentences. But above all, they must be fully enforced.