Dublin business owners are to employ “community wardens” to patrol Dublin’s north inner city and “observe and report” antisocial behaviour, a Dublin City Council meeting has heard.
Advertisements for the wardens, to operate initially in the Wolfe Tone Square, Capel Street and Jervis Street areas, are being finalised and wardens are “about to be appointed”, Cormac Ó Donnchú chair of north inner city community safety partnership has said.
Speaking at the council’s monthly joint policing committee meeting on Tuesday he said such wardens were well established in parts of Northern Ireland, notably Derry City and county, Newry and Downpatrick. They had been an initiative following the 1999 Patten report on policing, and are described in information leaflets as: “Helping to make a difference in your community ... improving the safety of your area and quality of life in your local community.”
Mr Ó Donnchú said the wardens would be employed through Dublin Town, a collective of city centre businesses focused on promoting the capital as a place to visit.
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“The intention is we will employ community safety wardens whose role will be non-enforcement but will be observing and reporting on all issues relating to community safety within that area and will be liaising with stakeholders, businesses, residents,” he said.
“[Their role will be] one to observe and report on all matters as they occur and secondly to encourage and engage with pro-social activity and arrange pro-social events in the area.
“Our community safety wardens, which we are about to appoint, will be employed through Dublin Town,” he said.
The north inner city community safety partnership (CSP) is one of three pilot organisations funded by the Department of Justice and established under the auspices of the Policing and Community Safety Bill, Mr Ó Donnchú said.
They were a recognition of the need for greater co-operation between gardaí, State agencies, elected representatives, residents and businesses, and local organisations to protect community safety. The other pilot CSPs were in Waterford city and county and in Co Longford and it was planned they would be established nationwide to replace joint policing committees.
Wardens would not usurp gardaí, he said. “Their role primarily is to provide a visible on-street presence, a reassurance to footfall within the area. They are not in any way taking on the role of An Garda Síochána. Their role there is to guide, provide guidance for individuals, help signposting and to liaise with the stakeholders within the area.”
Cllr Mannix Flynn (Independent) said he would like to “tease out more” the businesses’ involvement and whether wardens would be “identifiable and targeted”. He asked when wardens might be introduced into council housing estates “where there is wholesale antisocial behaviour, drug dealing and intimidation ... mayhem”.
“I hear a lot of verbals and a lot of presentations, I read a lot of reports over the last 15 years .. and we are in a worse scenario than we have ever been. Our streets are unsafe, our estates are unsafe ... when are these going to be rolled out?”
Joe Donohoe of Fatima Groups United said he was “curious” about the “ramifications of the name or title” of wardens. He asked: “Who is Dublin Town?”
The committee heard a presentation from a new initiative to tackle drug-related intimidation. Siobhán Maher, co-ordinator of Drive (drug related intimidation and violence engagement), said the issue was increasing in poorer communities across the State, forcing people to leave their homes or having their homes taken over as a base to take and sell drugs.
*This article was amended on Wednesday, November 23rd, 2022 to correct an error about the funding of the initiative and to change the attribution of a quote.
