The Republic of Ireland is rolling out a new policy on community safety, and it sounds like the UK’s, writes Mark Rowe.
Last month saw the unveiling of a Dublin North Inner City Local Community Safety Plan. The 52-page document included one page on community safety wardens. Minister for Justice Helen McEntee said: “But increasing community safety – people being safe, and feeling safe too – is not only the responsibility of the justice system or An Garda Síochána [the Irish police]. It requires many of us in state agencies and organisations working together – and working with the local community. Because nobody knows better than local communities how to make their areas safer.”
Unsafe narrative
The plan admitted to a ‘prevailing narrative that the North Inner City is unsafe’. Like any similar-sized city in the British Isles – and with an estimated population of 1.4m, Dublin is second only to London – it has its share of drug dealing, drunks and organised crime. The Department of Justice set up a Community Safety Initiative Fund. The LCSP made a successful application to the fund to establish a pilot community safety warden (CSW) scheme. The scheme will operate in two pilot areas: Wolfe Tone Square and surrounds and, a couple of blocks away, O’Connell Street (the city’s famous main drag). The warden pilot scheme is now in place to provide an increasing feeling of safety and act as an additional opportunity to observe and report issues of concern for anti-social behaviour, according to the plan. DublinTown, the city centre’s business improvement district (BID) is the lead Partner and principal employer for the pilot wardens.However, the remit of the wardens is wider than retail business and will include waste management and the public domain.
Feelings of safety
The plan stated: “The CSWs will promote feelings of safety through their high on-street visibility, ability to share up-to-date information on public transport, knowledge of services in the area and ability to signpost key visitor attractions. The CSWs will also offer support to the most vulnerable members of our community, signposting support services and making referrals where appropriate.” They will work with partners such as the police, the council (on the homeless), a drug project, and the city council more generally. The two sets of wardens will have quite different remits. While the O’Connell Street wardens will focus on the ‘night-time economy, those accessing public transport, visitors and residents’, those in he Wolfe Tone Square ‘will focus on supporting the local residential community, regular visitors and those that work in the area. They will assist promoting pro-social events targeted at children, older members of the community and those that consider themselves vulnerable’.
More in the October print edition of Professional Security Magazine.
Photo by Mark Rowe; looking north towards O’Connell Street, September evening, from south of the River Liffey.
