Violence in Dublin affecting vendor's ability to recruit staff – TD

North inner city vendors cannot source staff willing to stay around O'Connell Street and Talbot Street late at night.

That's according to Sinn Fein TD, Louise O’Reilly, who was speaking to Newstalk Breakfast following the robbery and serious assault of three men in their 20s in Temple Bar this weekend.

The attack is one of many in a series of high-profile assaults which have pushed crime up the political agenda and sparked debate about how best to tackle it.

Deputy O'Reilly said inner-city vendors feel the level of violence is "demonstrably worse" than ever before.

"Now, it's having an impact on their capacity to be able to recruit," she said.

"There are young workers who are worried – they're anxious about locking up at night, they're anxious about being in the shops, in the pubs, in the evening times."

Deputy O'Reilly said young workers find the late-night commute home from work to be especially anxiety-inducing.

"This is something that is relatively new – fears around people going on public transport," she said.

"There's no disputing it, when you talk to the traders they will tell you that they have seen a marked increase over the last number of years and also that it is impacting on their capacity to be able to recruit."

"Visible policing" would reduce this anxiety for employers and staff, Deputy O'Reilly said.

"What we need to do is ensure that there's physical policing, not just in the city centre, but in the urban villages as well," she said.

Former Garda Sergeant Christy Galligan said there is a "huge issue" with underreporting of crimes.

"We know from a CSO survey in 2019 that only 29% of victims reported such incidents, so there's a huge underreporting of assaults," he said.

Sergeant Galligan said the involvement of juveniles in crimes has been a growing issue for Gardaí.

"8% of crime is committed by juveniles under the age of 18," he said.

"It's a sad reality that is happening in every town."

Sergeant Galligan said the new policing model has been the "biggest abject failure" in An Garda Siochána at present.

"The roster system that they have today introduced – even the new roster system they're going to reintroduce – are five-man units," he said.

"There aren't sufficient uniformed members to cover those five manned units."

Sergeant Galligan said the "numerous specialist units" within the Gardaí have meant that uniformed members are no longer available for street patrolling.

"You're losing manpower, you're not replacing," he said.

"You have the issue of recruitment and retention, the number of people who are resigning from the job."

Deputy O'Reilly said the injection of €10 million to increase Garda presence on the street will not solve issues with staffing.

"That was given to purchase over time – if you're talking to members of An Garda Siochána, they will tell you that very many are burnt out already from doing overtime," she said.

To increase intake into Templemore, Deputy O'Reilly said Gardaí need to have "a plan" to increase the number of Gardaí in training and graduating.

"We would propose using a hybrid model where you've got half of the intake training on the job, and the other half in Templemore and then they swapped over," she said.

"They can't obviously do frontline policing, they have to be supervised, but they're learning on the job."

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