Antisocial Behaviour Dail Éireann — 2026-04-16 ============================================================ Barry Ward (FG), Dún Laoghaire The issue I want to raise with the Minister today has some similarity to the last issue in that it relates to Garda action, particularly in respect of juvenile antisocial behaviour cases. "Antisocial behaviour" is an umbrella term that covers many different activities. Some will say that antisocial behaviour is just that, antisocial, but of course it encompasses criminality as well. I fear there are certain young people who are behaving antisocially, but by extension criminally, with impunity. They are not being held to account for what they are doing, for the impact they are having on local communities and specific residents, and in terms of their criminal actions. The Minister knows I have been practising in criminal law for nearly 20 years and have dealt with juvenile cases. I would be the last to suggest we should increase the criminalisation of young people. Doing so is unhelpful in many ways. I will allude briefly to the dysfunctionality of our current Children's Court system and the delays in implementing all the progressive measures that were put into the Children Act 25 years ago. However, on the flip side of that coin, you cannot have a situation in which young people, teenagers, are doing whatever they want to whomever they want without any fear of consequence. That leads to considerable lawlessness in communities and massively interrupts the ability of ordinary people living in them to enjoy their property, get on with their lives, go to work, bring their children to school and even send their children to the shop. I have met people in the Dún Laoghaire area who tell me they will not let their 12-year-old children go to the shop on their own because of kids in the area who might intimidate them, intercept them or even rob them. We cannot allow that to continue. I have raised this with the Garda. We are lucky in south Dublin's F and W districts, namely Dún Laoghaire and Blackrock, to have gardaí who are on top of their brief, who are working incredibly hard, who liaise with the communities and who are plugged into the situation. However, the problem is that they do not feel they are equipped with either the resources or, perhaps more importantly, the powers to deal with this issue. For example, a 14-year-old who engages in criminal activity in the local area, maybe at a low level, gets arrested by the Garda and is brought down to Blackrock or Dún Laoghaire Garda station cannot be left in a cell on their own, first of all. When they are there, they cannot be with one adult on their own. Two gardaí have to be with them. That takes two gardaí off the streets. They cannot be out doing the work we need them to do at a particular time. In due course, a parent is called. I acknowledge that many of these problems often stem from a lack of parental control. When the parent or guardian is called, he or she comes down to the station and the child is released into that person's custody. They are brought home and they are not even kept in the house for the rest of the night sometimes. No prosecution may flow from that. Whatever about there being no prosecution, the reality is there is a deficit at the moment in what gardaí can do to deal specifically with juvenile misbehaviour, juvenile antisocial behaviour and juvenile criminality. Obviously, the further up the scale of seriousness it goes, the greater the power of gardaí to act. At the moment, however, people in the Dún Laoghaire constituency, which is a lovely place to live and one that does not generally suffer from major crime problems, tell me that there is a growing problem with juvenile antisocial behaviour. This is a problem that exists in parks and housing estates and on main streets. In Deansgrange recently, the windows of many shops were broken overnight. That was done by one particular offender who, I understand, has been apprehended by gardaí. I do not know the details, but I am sure it will take its course within the courts. Further up the scale, gardaí may have the powers to act. That is fine. However, in terms of the stuff that impinges on ordinary people and prevents them from the peaceful enjoyment of their properties and their neighbourhoods or from going to work, school or to the shops, there is a major problem. I would love to hear the Minister's proposals for how we are going to deal with that. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-04-16/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:49+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-04-16