Michael Moynihan: Cork is looking for some leadership in a city confronted by rising crime

“That’s a reality of modern living, it’s a reality of modern urban life, but we have to get to grips with it in terms of policing and in terms of making our streets safe again.”

Why does it feel so unsafe?

The Tánaiste was speaking in the context of a specific incident, a horrifying situation in which two Indian students had ropes put around their necks in separate racially motivated attacks in the centre of Cork last week. Little wonder that a representative of UCC’s Indian Alumni Community has warned incoming students they may fall victim to abuse or assaults while living in the city.

This is not the only marker of deterioration in recent times. Anyone who visits the city on a regular basis will have a tale of harassment or intimidation, ranging from low-level annoyance to outright confrontation.

In recent weeks, though, we have seen the a shocking range of incidents from a section of the Boardwalk being shut after a popular cafe was attacked to the stabbing of a French teacher who was accompanying students to Cork.

On the day the Tánaiste’s remarks were reported we had the latest instalment of city centre violence, when a man was savagely attacked outside a cafe on Oliver Plunkett Street. All of this is without considering the recent need for armed garda checkpoints across suburbs north and south of the Lee.

These are merely the headline events, with other, less serious incidents occurring all the time. But consider this: the Indian student was attacked early on a Saturday evening, the cafe incident occurred in the middle of the day, and the teacher was stabbed around 10pm. Last Friday’s incident took place around 5pm.

The Tanaiste’s point about people not feeling safe “particularly at night” rings a little hollow when one realises Cork is also unsafe in broad daylight, whether you’re stepping around aggressive beggars in the middle of the street or giving a noonday brawl a wide berth.

Your columnist is no different. A few weeks ago I was dropping someone off at the far end of Oliver Plunkett Street, by the old Harbour Commissioners’ office. When I turned in by the hotel there was a man on the footpath injecting himself into the groin. It wasn’t quite half nine in the morning.

Clearly someone who is in that situation is in the grip of an overwhelming addiction and is hardly responsible for their actions. There should be more supports made available for people who are grappling with those addictions, and the groups and organisations who are working in this field, many of them volunteer-driven charities, deserve all the help they can get.

At the same time this is not the kind of scene that would encourage anyone to linger in or visit the city centre, to put it mildly.

The size of our addiction problem was emphasised last week in coverage of the report of the Tabor Group, which deals with addiction. Statistics from 2023 show a 228% increase in cases where cocaine was the primary drug from 2017 to 2023; a 600% increase in crack cocaine use during the same period; and cocaine overtaking opioids as the most common problem drug in 2022.

The report also showed one in five drinkers in Ireland, the equivalent of 600,000 people, is classified as having alcohol use disorder.

Tackling crime

The increase in the use of cocaine, crack, and opioids and the existing alcohol problem are on such a scale that it is bound to show on our streets. And it is.

What is to be done?

A sense of urgency in addressing addiction would be a start. A multi-agency delegation from Cork — with representatives from Cork City Council, the HSE, and An Garda Síochána — visited a supervised injection centres in Lisbon to see what could be learned back in May of 2023.

Since then?

Two weeks ago Colm Burke, Fine Gael TD for Cork North Central and minister of state at the Department of Health, told The Echo that a pilot scheme involving a supervised injection facility in Dublin was currently in the process of being introduced, but that no decision would be made regarding a similar facility in Cork until the progress of the Dublin facility could be assessed.

That is where supervised injection facilities for Cork are: dependent on the results from a Dublin facility yet to open.

As for policing, the under-resourcing of the gardaí in Cork is a matter of public record. But this tipped into the realm of the farcical over the summer when we learned that dozens of gardaí were being sent from Ireland to Paris to help with policing the Olympics.

Anyone who has ever spent any time in France will know that there is no shortage of police forces, let alone officers, in that country. As a man who spent a fortnight in Paris covering the Rugby World Cup many years ago I salute the gardaí who got a few days hanging out in the City of Lights, but an obvious point can be made here.

If 56 gardaí could be spared for Paris, could even half of those be spared for Cork?

They’re needed on the streets. And in other places.

Recently we had a serious issue in Cork with bus drivers being threatened and abused in Cork, and there was a good deal of hand-wringing about what was to be done.

Yet when bus services faced similar challenges in Dublin earlier this year Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan told the Dáil that garda patrols had been increased and undercover officers assigned to some of those buses in question. It is the laziest of clichés to complain about the concentration of resources in the capital, but even the laziest of clichés ring true every now and then.

Finally, where is the leadership on this matter?

I note calls for a directly-elected mayor in Cork, as is the case in Limerick. It’s plausible: a central figure pulling together the various stakeholders could conceivably help remedy the apathy and aimlessness in Cork. It would be better than city council motions on imprisoning people for a year for public intoxication, for instance.

Mind you, Cork has been represented in recent years by TDs holding the offices of Taoiseach, Tánaiste (twice), Minister for Finance, Minister for Foreign Affairs (twice), Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Minister for Defence, and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment.

How much more leadership is needed?