Drug use linked to violent attacks and must be tackled, says Martin

Gráinne Ní Aodha and Cillian Sherlock, PA

Tánaiste Micheál Martin has said substance abuse is linked to “vicious” attacks in Irish cities and must be tackled.

Following an attack on a US tourist which left the victim in a serious condition, Mr Martin said Dublin was “broadly” safe and that there are also parts of other Irish cities which people will not walk in at night.

Stephen Termini, a US tourist aged in his 50s, was injured in an attack on Talbot Street in Dublin last week.

There have been calls for a greater police presence in Dublin city centre since the attack, as Ministers committed to recruiting more gardaí and emphasised the safety of the city.

Minister for Justice Helen McEntee said she herself felt safe in Dublin, and said the number of garda recruits was steadily increasing since the pandemic.

Speaking to reporters from the Curragh Camp in Co Kildare, Mr Martin said: “Broadly speaking, Dublin city is safe but … people are concerned about particular areas that they will not traverse at night.”

He said there was a need to analyse causes of what makes parts of the city feel unsafe, in particular cases where young people take part in “violent activity, be it in a gang formation or randomly attacking people”.

“A lot of violence, generally, alcohol and drug abuse is not far away when you see very vicious attacks of the kind that happened last week, and I condemn that without question,” he said.

“I’ve heard about people being randomly attacked in other parts of the country, in Cork and elsewhere, as well, just randomly attacked on our streets and that is not acceptable.”

He added: “There’s a wider issue in terms of, I think, the increased level of drug activity, people participating in drugs and then subsequently becoming very violent. That is something we have to tackle also.”

He said there has been “a lot of patrols on our streets”, but added “we could always do” with more gardaí.

Mr Martin also blamed both the Covid-19 pandemic for “interrupting” recruitment efforts, and historically low unemployment for difficulties in tackling a shortage of garda members.

He added that the Government aims to increase garda numbers, as per the Programme for Government, and acknowledged there is an “issue” around the deployment of existing resources.

“If we had the same throughput as we would have expected before Covid interrupted that, we probably would have at least kept even Steven,” he said.