Madam, – It’s always depressing to hear reports of attempted or actual violence, especially against young people and even more so when it happens to visitors to Ireland. However, I can’t help but think that Eamonn O’Loghlin (August 2nd) is being just a bit unfair in his condemnation of the Irish Government and Irish people in general.
Sadly, my first reaction on reading his account of Canadian teenagers being threatened in Dublin, was “this kind of thing happens all of the time in cities all over the world”. I wondered if Mr O’Loghlin’s home city (Toronto) might be an exception, so I looked at a Toronto news website (www.thestar.com). The first story I saw reported three separate homicides in Toronto within a 24-hour period at the weekend just past. The youngest victim was a teenager, the other two were men in their 20s, both murdered in broad daylight. Another website (www.cbc.ca) revealed that there was on average more than one murder a week in Toronto in the first half of this year.
It seems like violent crime is a pretty big problem in Toronto, possibly an even bigger problem than it is in Dublin. That doesn’t change the fact that what happened to those Canadian teenagers on Grafton Street is terrible, but in response to Mr O’Loghlin’s call for Irish people to “Take back your streets” I would be interested to know what Mr O’Loghlin is doing to combat crime in his own city? – Yours, etc,