Chronic underfunding of policing and safety initiatives in Ballymun has exposed children to the horrors of the drug trade, according to Social Democrats TD Rory Hearne.<\/p>\n
Deputy Hearne, who represents the Ballymun area, said:<\/p>\n
\u201cYesterday\u2019s incident in Ballymun happened as a result of safety and drug-related intimidation being left unchallenged in the community by successive governments spanning decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is an inadequate level of community policing in the area, which fails to prevent open drug dealing outside of schools, exposing children to the harms of the ongoing local feud.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve raised this matter a number of times in the D\u00e1il, with Dublin City Council, in community meetings and with Garda\u00ed, who are trying their best with the limited resources they have been allocated. All parties agree that safety initiatives in the area, from policing to youth diversion, are chronically underfunded.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is astonishing that the Dublin North Metropolitan region has a 35% lower number of Garda\u00ed by population than the city\u2019s average, despite the high level of gang-related crime in the area. High crime and low investment has resulted in the inevitable today, and this is not what Ballymun deserves.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe region has 212 Garda\u00ed per 100,000 people, compared to the entire Dublin Metropolitan region\u2019s average of 286 per 100,000.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe children of Ballymun have as much a right to safety as anyone in Ireland, and should be provided for in accordance with the area\u2019s level of need.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been directly contacted by families affected by the local gang feud, parents and children who are affected in different ways by the scourge of the drug trade and its ongoing intimidation. They feel they have been forgotten about.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m calling on Minister for Justice Jim O\u2019Callaghan to address the chronic underfunding of policing and safety initiatives in Ballymun to ensure yesterday\u2019s events are no longer an inevitability.\u201d<\/p>\n
April 29th, 2026<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chronic underfunding of policing and safety initiatives in Ballymun has exposed children to the horrors of the drug trade, according to Social Democrats TD Rory Hearne. Deputy Hearne, who represents the Ballymun area, said: \u201cYesterday\u2019s incident in Ballymun happened as a result of safety and drug-related intimidation being left unchallenged in the community by successive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12981,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[502,656,733,725,411,510],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime","category-drug-addiction","category-drug-use","category-dublin","category-justice","category-rory-hearne"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n