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Another crime added to long list by GAAGo

Simon Harris leaps to defence of Helen McEntee after Peader Tóibín decries ‘cynical nonsense’

Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald suggested Simon Harris and Fine Gael did not have 'a serious approach at all' to tackling crime. Photograph: Damien Storan/PA Wire

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Miriam Lord
Thu Jul 4 2024 - 06:00

Not one, but two sessions in Dáil Éireann on Wednesday devoted to discussing domestic, sexual and gender-based violence. Half the morning and then half the afternoon examining the issue.

Yet again.

There is nothing new in saying there is nothing new. That novelty passed a long time again.

But there is nothing gained by saying nothing either.

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“So, here we go again with statements in the chamber following news of an utterly chilling act of violence committed against a woman,” sighed Mary Lou McDonald at the start of her contribution. In this instance, she was referring to Natasha O’Brien, the latest name on the never-ending list.

We sought lighter fare in Leaders Questions, unsuccessfully.

The main topic here was lawlessness in Dublin’s city centre and the shocking death of a Canadian tourist assaulted on the capital’s main street just over a week ago.

The exchanges saw a fascinating turnabout for Irish politics with the leader of Sinn Féin scoffing at Fine Gael’s long-held claim to be the party of law and order and a former Sinn Féin TD repurposing a phrase from a British prime minister to accuse the party of being “soft on crime, soft on the causes of crime”.

Charges the Taoiseach and proud inheritor of Fine Gael’s tough-on crime tenet vehemently rejected. Simon Harris detailed eight “real and practical measures” his Government is taking to tackle the problem.

These include allocating €28 million more this year on Garda overtime, forthcoming legislation on knife crime, introducing bodycams for gardaí, increased sentencing for attacks on a garda or member of the emergency services and the recent assignment of more than 100 Templemore graduates to Dublin.

As he has largely given up on Mary Lou acknowledging the Coalition actions he outlines in the Dáil, the Taoiseach did what he always does and listed them “for the people watching at home”.

Harris places great store by these “people watching at home” and rarely forgets them during his jousts with the Sinn Féin leader.

We think “God bless his optimism” every time he mentions them because it’s hard to imagine many people tuning in to listen unless they are in a home for the bewildered, irredeemable anoraks or paid to do it. Or a combination of all three.

But those who did on Wednesday would have heard him say the Government takes the safety of people in Dublin “extremely seriously”.

Mary Lou McDonald didn’t think much of his party’s attitude to keeping the peace. “I don’t see a serious approach at all from you, from your Government – so-called champions of law and order. You’ve left people really vulnerable and feeling very, very unsafe.”

She didn’t paint a pretty picture, talking of an inner city that is an unsafe place “scourged” with antisocial behaviour, open drug dealing and consumption, and gangs creating an atmosphere of fear and intimidation.

Peadar Tóibín, the former Sinn Féin TD who is now leader of Áontu, went even further. Not only is Dublin not safe but “Ireland is becoming a dangerous place and there is hardly a street in a town or a city where people are not living in fear”.

He reeled off an eye-popping catalogue of criminality. Murders nearly doubled, robberies, extortions, hijacking offences, massive increase in juvenile crime, extremely high level of drug deaths, domestic abuse cases at a 50-year high and women scared to walk home alone from work.

More gardaí are needed, he said.

And the Taoiseach repeated his eight-point list of measures recently introduced or in the pipeline “for the people watching at home”.

Then Tóibín, a TD for Meath West, said Helen McEntee’s statement that “she won’t tolerate any form of domestic or sexual violence in future” is “cynical nonsense” even though many Opposition members acknowledge the Minister for Justice has done a lot of good work in this area, even if there is more to do.

As Peadar sees it, the Government tolerates the level of crime he highlighted and its policies are “directly responsible for the increase in lawlessness in this country”.

Harris wasn’t going to let this attack on his Minister, who is a TD for Meath East, go unchallenged. He called Toibin out in no uncertain terms for his “constant misrepresentation” of her position.

“Indeed, I believe some of your commentary in terms of some of the changes that she’s tried to make ... has certainly not helped, quite frankly.”

Far from there being anything cynical about what McEntee is trying to do, “even her most ardent opponents” would acknowledge the political leadership she has shown “often in the face of unfair criticism that should be called out for what it is”, he said.

It was a relief when Noel Grealish, the independent TD for Galway West, brought up a different serious issue causing consternation around the nation.

It was also a surprise that it took so long for a Galway deputy to raise the small matter of an All-Ireland senior football match last weekend when the Tribesmen dethroned Dublin in Croke Park.

However, one of Galway’s finest hours was tarnished by the fact that people couldn’t watch the game on terrestrial television but had to pay the online platform GAAGo for the privilege. Another crime to add to the list submitted earlier.

Noel said many of the “aggravated” people who got in touch with him to complain “are the people who built the GAA” or the “G-Ay-Ah”. A lot of them are pensioners with no access to wifi or without the means to pay for the service.

Would the Taoiseach meet the president and DG of the G-Ay-Ah and help find a solution so all the matches can be shown for free on the national airwaves?

Simon Harris knows what side his election match programme is buttered on.

He informed Noel that he brought up this thorny issue before and “there was a lot of tut-tutting from the top brass” in Croke Park who were very disappointed with his comments.

But he was willing to trying again, appealing to them directly from the floor of the Dáil on behalf of all the disappointed fans.

“So don’t listen to me if you don’t want to – that’s grand. But please do listen to the grass roots of the GAA. The GAA is an amazing organisation and its beauty has been that it’s a grass-roots organisation ... There has to be a better way of doing this.”

[ Ciarán Murphy: We need more games on GAAGo – not fewer ]

It turns out he will be meeting soon with the aforementioned top brass, “both of whom have reached out to me on this issue”.

The people watching at home will have been delighted to hear it.

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