Sir, – On Wednesday of this week, three rioters arrested in Merseyside in England were jailed for three years, 2½ years and 20 months. The convictions related to rioting within the previous week, and followed a statement by the UK prime minister Keir Starmer promising swift action to deal with the lawlessness on the streets of England of the past week.
Meantime, following last November’s appalling rioting, intimidation and property destruction in Dublin – and in the wake of the more recent Coolock rioting – we’ve seen the usual Irish law and order charade play out. Offenders being brought to court by our hard-working gardaí; petty bail amounts imposed by our judges; and the offenders back on the street within hours of their arrest. And we’ll wait months at least before a full hearing of their cases, and minimal or no custodial sentences will ensue.
We’ve had lots of rhetoric from our Minister for Justice and other members of Government about getting tougher on the wave of anti-immigrant criminality that has erupted in this country over the past year.
The new Labour government in the UK has set the bar now for our Government, and all the political parties, for what law-abiding citizens of this country have sought for years, and now demand. – Yours, etc,
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STEPHEN O’BYRNES,
Dublin 4.