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Anti-social behaviour fears highlighted in survey

Thursday, 03 July 2008

GARDAI and council officials are being urged to tackle anti-social behaviour in Loughlinstown following a survey which found that almost two thirds of those queried felt less safe than this time last year.
Sinn Féin activists in the Dún Laoghaire area conducted the door-to-door survey in a Loughlinstown estate on the issue of community safety and found that 62 per cent of respondents felt less safe than they did last year.
The study also found that 40 households or 85 per cent of participants in the survey were reluctant to use one or more public spaces in their area.
Asked what type of anti-social behaviour they had experienced locally, 79 per cent of those surveyed said they had witnessed people taking drugs. The same percentage had witnessed drug dealing and drunken behaviour.
A further 51 per cent said they had experienced both verbal abuse and “threatening or intimidating behaviour”.
When asked how they would rate the performance of gardaí in the area, 46.8 per cent said they were satisfied while 36 per cent said they were dissatisfied.
Sinn Fein claimed that they called at all of the 200 homes in one estate and a total of 47 households responded to the survey.
Sinn Féin Ballybrack ward representative, Eoin Ó'Broin, said the survey showed that county council and the gardaí needed to urgently tackle anti-social behaviour in Loughlinstown.
“The survey findings are an urgent wake up call to Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council and other statutory bodies to do more to address the problems of anti-social behaviour in the area,” he said.
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“All those surveyed identified additional resources for community facilities or actions by statutory agencies as being central to creating a safer community.”
Superintendent Martin Fitzgerald at Dún Laoghaire Garda station said he was not aware of the survey and could therefore not comment on it.
However, he said that community activists were “quite happy” with Garda actions throughout the whole sub-district of Shankill, which includes the estate where the survey was carried out.
“There is a high level of Garda response to issues and that is also reflected in the crime figures for the area,” he told Southside People.
“Not only that but we have a very professional working relationship with the activists on the ground.”
A spokesperson for Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council said they welcome and support all initiatives designed to promote strong and safe neighbourhood areas and would continue to work with other agencies and local people to meet the needs of communities.
“It is acknowledged that a co-ordinated multi agency approach is the way forward,” the spokesperson added.
Tom Mowlds, Senior Community Officer at the local authority said: “The council directly manage such initiatives as estate management, including the Loughlinstown Estate Management Forum, which is made up of local residents and a council community office.
“This is a vital part of council policy in the area. The council also supports a number of other initiatives in Loughlinstown through the RAPID programme, including the Safety and Security Committee, which examines community safety issues.”

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