It's a straight conflict between the people of Ballyfermot and the Garda. The people say the drug problem is worse, the perpetrators are younger and the intimidation is growing. The police say that Ballyfermot's crime rate fell by 12 per cent for 1999, the detection rate was "up" to 40 per cent and that, generally, "things are definitely better".
The people say they don't bother to report crime any more, and that is why crime appears to be down. Gardai point to a series of high-profile captures, drug seizures and local sweeps. Attacks on the person, down from 14 to six; syringe robberies, down from 12 to six; 275 people charged with public order offences; 371 cars seized. Value of drugs seized by local Garda units last year: £1,513,740.
The statistics are on the Garda's side. Yet the people they serve have never felt so isolated. They believe that manpower has fallen and, according to local sources, they're right: in a few years, it has fallen by nearly 10 per cent, from 80 officers to 73. Community gardai are a rarity.
The unvarnished view is that Ballyfermot has been left to rot.
A young married woman, though surrounded by good neighbours and family, is selling up. "Two years ago, I would have walked any street in Ballyfermot. Not now," she said. "I can't even let my son play football in the park. Everyone can see the gangs hanging around and the dealing going on there and at the shops."
A whole cross-section of the Ballyfermot community says it no longer trusts the Garda to respond to calls, or to follow up, or to treat locals as normal humans with the same brain and sensitivities as a southsider.
A woman whose children were nearly run down by a "company car" being driven by an identifiable 13- or 14-year-old witnessed and reported the incident. She was told confidently that the car had left the area. Later she saw it parked round the corner from her, where it stayed before inevitably being burnt out.
At least one resident, tired of being told that the Garda needs evidence, submitted a video of a car being stolen but has heard nothing.
A female professional, commuting to work in Ballyfermot for over 25 years, can rattle off a dozen similar incidents. A witness to a break-in of the woman's car phoned the police with the culprit's name. "Two weeks later, nothing had been done," she says. "The witness had not been approached, the culprit's home had not been searched. A colleague then rang my mobile, which had been stolen from the car, and got an address. We gave that to the gardai. They still drew a blank."
A few years ago a colleague working late and alone on the premises heard movement on the roof and phoned the local Garda station. One hour later no help had arrived. When she rang again and there was still no response, she had to make a run for it. "In effect", says the woman, "we don't have a service in this area."
"Most people I know wouldn't be bothered phoning the police now," says a resident of 40 years. "They keep telling us they need to catch the dealers at it. But I and other people have rung them umpteen times and nothing happens".
Just as deeply felt here is the sense that Ballyfermot children must be somehow less sensitive to traumatic incidents. "I know of several cases where the same young criminal turned up wearing a balaclava and shooting into the air and people wouldn't even bother reporting it.
"But when he attacked a group of young people like that, their parents did report it. But no one ever came back to them to say what was happening, or even to refer some of the kids to Victim Support," says a woman. "And those kids were terrified . . . What's happening to policing that no one would even come back to reassure those parents? Can you imagine that happening in Ballsbridge?"
The same question crops up in many guises. When the bodies of Darren Carey and Patrick Murray were found in a canal, locals questioned whether any meaningful manhunt had been put in place for them during the 10 days they were reported missing. Gardai believe they may have been held for up to three days, before being murdered.
Was there a manhunt? In an interview with The Irish Times, Assistant Commissioner Jim McHugh responded to the question by asking: "How many people are reported missing every year?" But these boys were most likely at risk, I suggested.
"Why do you say `at risk'?" Well, Murray had made a statement to the police, which some individuals might have found threatening. "Lots of people make statements. People go missing or make themselves unavailable for a variety of reasons. Those people have travelled widely. We live in the real world." Having said this, Mr McHugh added: "What I would say to you is that people are reported missing from Dalkey or Ballyfermot. Our attitude towards them wouldn't vary . . . Insofar as I'm aware, they were treated as missing persons. I am not aware that there was any indication given that they were at risk . . ."
Later he telephoned to say that the two young men had been "circulated" as missing persons. "They were also circulated through the media, and inquiries were made with Irish Ferries and on Carey's mobile, to see if any calls had been made on it. So it was not just recording names and addresses."
He had also located a report of an investigation into a complaint made to the Commissioner by the woman professional. Although the report appears to clear the gardai involved (accused of sitting in a car rather than investigating an incident), the woman has yet to hear about it.
During a lengthy interview, it was plain that the Assistant Commissioner felt strongly that the blame for the general situation was being unfairly apportioned. "The guards didn't create those ghettos; they're there. And I think for far too long, the perception was out there that the guards could solve all of those problems . . . It's now generally recognised that the drugs problem, in particular, cannot be policed away," he said.
He returned repeatedly to the demographic make-up of Ballyfermot - that 26.5 per cent of the population is under 14, that 65 per cent leave school before the age of 15 - and to the "system, both their parents and the education system, which has failed them. And into that cocktail come the Garda Siochana in providing a police service.
"You must look at the root causes of crime . . . It's not about throwing more police into an area in order to try and subdue those people."
The teenage offenders who are released back into the community with no effective deterrent or intervention - and probably in training to be future "Mr Bigs" - are clearly another thorn in the Garda side. "There is no place of detention for them. When we take these people in and they're back out again, the public look towards the police and say, `Look, why is this guy out?' "
Locals and activists in Ballyfermot say they have heard all this many times before and it does not explain the inadequate service. "There is clearly a need now for a more serious engagement between the community and the Garda to see how best they might be made accountable to the people for the service they're supposed to be delivering," said Mr David Connolly, a local activist.
In response to this, Assistant Commissioner McHugh referred to projects led by gardai in deprived areas and to independent national surveys which showed "that the acceptance of the Garda Siochana within the communities which it serves is at a very, very high level". Unfortunately, such results cannot be broken down into specific areas.
Sgt Patrick Murphy of the Garda's relatively new National Quality of Service Bureau confirmed the high level of national satisfaction in surveys, but added: "We are not satisfied that a national survey is enough. The Commissioner has laid out clearly what he wants in this regard."
To that end, representative national, district and divisional "customer" panels have been established. Divisional year-end results must henceforth include an independent, customer survey of that district's performance, which will be published.
Ms Marie Metcalf, a member of the national quality service panel for the Inner City Organisation Network (ICON) and co-ordinator of community policing for the north-east inner city believes this approach is worth a try. "Trust has to be there first," she said. "The gardai are saying at the moment, `Give us a chance to prove to the community that we are willing to work with you'.
"And the community is saying, `OK, we'll give it a year and if the gardai are just bullshitting, then we'll decide'."