In six years of having been here and having been a regulator contributor to Topical Issue debates, this is the first time I have had a senior Minister here to respond. While I will often disagree with the Minister and we will often clash, I do not doubt for a second his dedication to the issues he is in charge of. There has unquestionably been an increase in the Garda presence in the commercial city centre of Dublin over the past six months. The Minister and his Department should be commended on that. Many retailers can see the benefits of the increased Garda presence. One consequence of that is the displacement of some of the issues in the commercial city centre, which have now been pushed into the more residential parts of the inner city. We have seen an increase in open drug dealing, the intimidation that goes alongside that and antisocial behaviour. For 30 or 40 years we have heard about the containment of problems. Tony Gregory, long before I was ever in the House, used that phrase to describe parts of the city where there were issues that were tolerated in a way they would not otherwise be. I will highlight some of the emails sent to me and issues raised with me this week. Today, I received an email from a resident in the Russell Street area, alongside Croke Park. It is 150 m from Fitzgibbon Street Garda station. The person concerned referred to an increase in burglaries in the area. The Russell Street Bakery, a lovely bakery that has been frequented by new people living in the community, was burgled this week. The understanding is that although there is a Garda station beside the bakery, it is rarely policed or manned, and people who are up to no good have cottoned on to that fact. The Minister might not know North Frederick Street Court, an apartment complex behind the Gate Theatre and Chapter One Restaurant. Those businesses have said they are overwhelmed by the displacement of people who have been pushed out of the commercial city centre and into laneways. People should always be tolerated, but there is open drug dealing, and the violence associated with that, in North Frederick Street Court. Mountjoy Square, which for me could become the jewel in the crown of the north side, is experiencing a significant level of violence and gang-related crime. Council workers have spoken about being fearful of going into Mountjoy Square because they regularly find knives stashed in the shrubbery. Open drug dealing also seems to be happening along the canal and people are fearful of walking in the area at night due to the use of electric scooters to transport drugs. The area is seen as an artery for transporting drugs. I regularly speak about the north inner city. I love the area and it is part of who I am. The issues the area is experiencing are generational and a product of the location in which the community is placed. The improved policing in the commercial city centre is really welcome, but some of the displacement factors stemming from this seem to mean that some of the issues that were there are now being tolerated in more residential parts. Is this the Minister's shared understanding? Perhaps we can speak afterwards about what we might do about it.

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I think the Minister misunderstood what I was implying when I spoke about the increased presence of gardaí in the city centre. I was not suggesting for a second that gardaí were being taken from various Garda stations and being brought into the city centre. What I was suggesting was that perhaps there is a policy of containment of problems in residential areas such that they are not coming into commercial areas. That is the feedback I get from residents. There was an initiative in the north inner city ten or 12 years ago called the small area policing initiative. Gardaí had the responsibility to knock on people's doors and introduce themselves. They were tasked with knocking on every door in the area to introduce themselves and explain that they were the local gardaí. It worked phenomenally well. It created a presence whereby people knew their gardaí and got the sense that the gardaí were there for them. In the decades since, that has been stripped away for a variety of reasons, which I do not want to get into now. When we lost the that, we lost our sense of gardaí in the community, tackling issues and building relationships there. We do not have this any more. The prioritisation seems to be angled towards what I refer to as the commercial city centre. I understand why this is. Two years ago, I was here speaking about the issues in that area. We need to get both right at the same time. Even though we are saying there has been an increased Garda presence in the city centre, I do not know whether the Minister has ever walked along O'Connell Street or gone over O'Connell Bridge at 9 p.m. or 10 p.m.

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It is not something that could be described as safe, even with the increased Garda presence. Next week after the voting block, I will walk across with the Minister. I walk through there every night.

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We can have a look. It is clearly not meeting the standard required, although there have clearly been improvements. I believe we need a different form of policing in commercial areas from that in residential areas. It requires a different strategy and a different approach, not quite a municipal police force but something similar. Residential policing and the policing of more commercial areas are different. We need community gardaí in our communities knocking on doors and introducing themselves, and we need gardaí on the streets and in commercial areas to have a different role.

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They can raise their own Topical Issues.

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