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Parklife
not so pleasant
DRINKING
and drug taking are as much a part of life in Dublin
parks as an evening stroll according to figures recently
released by Dublin City Council.
Last
year there was almost 4,700 breaches of by-laws in the
166 Dublin city parks including just under 2,000 incidents
of alcohol consumption and 288 drug abuse complaints.
The figures were released in a response to city councillor
Frances Fitzgerald (FG) who asked for the number of
incidents in parks referred to gardaí.
The good news is that thefts are relatively rare in
Dublin parks with only seven reported in 2002. However,
there were 221 reports of unruly behaviour which includes
stone throwing, verbal abuse, glass breaking and lighting
fires.
Dogs off leads are still causing a problem for park
wardens with 571 incidents. However, this is down from
628 in 2001. Dangerous cycling is also down from 95
to 66 incidents over the same period.
There was over 100 reports of loitering in playgrounds
and 45 incidents of begging in parks.
Playing sport outside of permitted hours or in forbidden
areas is also causing problems. Illegal football playing
more than doubled in 2002 with 188 reports compared
to just 78 the previous year. Un-permitted Golf and
fishing were also reported in the figures with 139 and
72 incidents.
There was also a big jump in rollerblading and skateboard
complaints which added up to 103 compared to just 12
in 2001.
Stolen cars and wandering horses are causing problems
in some parks with a total of 56 cars abandoned and
over 176 reports filed on horses.
Figures are expected to rise again for 2003 with the
small staff at the council park department stretched
to deal with an average of 12 incidents every day.
Gardai have access to the parks throughout the night
but just eight mobile park wardens, supported by a network
of local park rangers and relief rangers, patrol parks
before 10pm.
Cllr Fitzgerald said she was concerned with the rise
in drinking, drug taking and loitering.
“The
parks department do a very good job,” she said.
“But it’s very difficult especially when dealing
with anti-social behaviour. They need more support.”
Despite the high number of incidents reported a spokesperson
for Dublin City Council said only four were serious
enough to merit garda help.
The council deny suggestions that parks are unsafe insisting
any anti-social behaviour is usually defused very quickly.
City
parks are often targeted by vandals as this line of
broken trees shows
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