Conor Reddy

uh by the state uh to kind of fend for themselves there's not enough funding there's not enough resourcing uh andrew's the expert and i'm sure he'll come to us at the report that he wrote ballymun a brighter future i think uh we need to see action on the key recommendations from that report and other reports have been written about working class community safety and that's the only way out of uh situations like the one we're in right now in ballymun

Oh, it definitely is.

I've spoken to parents who have told me exactly this.

I've spoken to other parents who want to move

out of the area in some cases because they're terrified of what they live next or what they've experienced.

So it is shocking, it is out there.

And I guess older people in the community are another group that are really badly affected by all of this.

I've met countless older people who are afraid to walk to their local shops where you have that problem with open drug dealing, where you've had some really violent attacks on people who are engaged in that open drug dealing.

Again, I think this is a really complex problem that's become entrenched over years.

It's generational cycles of disadvantage, lack of opportunity and also underinvestment in community and voluntary work that does change lives.

Yeah, yeah.

Look, I agree with Andrew and actually some of the other interventions that I'd push for quite often, there's kind of more social interventions, preventative interventions.

A lot of the time they can't be effective unless the kind of on the ground social care workers can reach people in a safe way.

So I think you need to guarantee that basic level of safety first for that more transformative piece to take effect.

But I'd agree with Andrew and what he's saying there.

And I think the report

again, it speaks for itself.

It's worth reading and I think it would be broadly applicable in communities like Ballymun all over Ireland.

Grooming's a

really serious problem.