The Claire Byrne Show
“If violence or gunfire occurs nearby” advice leaflets in Ballymum
01 May 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance.
Concern around gun violence in Ballymun led to leaflets being distributed to parents advising them on what to do if violence or gunfire occurs nearby. The leaflets have been redistributed after a child in the area found and discharged a gun earlier this week. Well Conor Reddy is People Before Profit councillor for Ballymun Finglas and Andrew Montague is a former councillor.
and author of the report, Ballymun, A Brighter Future. You're both very welcome to the programme. Conor, to come to you first, these leaflets for people who are unaware of them, they say, stay inside, move inside immediately, bring young people indoors calmly and quickly, lock doors where possible, close blinds, curtains.
Chapter 2: What concerns led to the distribution of safety leaflets in Ballymun?
It's a five point plan and it says people should move away then from the windows and external doors and it tells adults they should use calm language to tell children we are safe inside.
I mean, it's just alarming to think that we're at this point in Ballymun in Dublin where we appear to be shifting our focus a little bit from preventing gun violence to actually having to manage the risk of it and the risk to kids out
Yeah, look, it is shocking, but it's not new. These leaflets, as far as I understand, were reissued recently, but they'd been issued a couple of months ago too. Unfortunately, we've had a feud that's been left to fester
over several months, there have been numerous shooting incidents, there were shots fired at shops, shots fired in public areas, there have been shots fired at houses, there have been arson attacks, there have been violent assaults on people in public. And what we've seen over the last week is just the latest kind of incidents of that. So I think this is crisis management.
We do need to get back into the realms of prevention, but it's crisis management for now. That's the reality that we've been living in. And I think it has to be a turning point now that the spotlight is on what people in Ballymun have been forced to live with. Everyone deserves to live with safety, whether from Ballymun or Donnybrook or any other part of Dublin.
Yeah, it struck me when I was covering this on Newstalk Daily yesterday, the comments from local people. We're shocked by this particular incident, but we're not surprised. And yet the rest of the country seems to be totally taken aback by this incident a couple of days ago. How aware are children in the area of this antisocial behaviour or the gun violence that we are seeing in Ballymun?
I don't want to overdramatise things, but I think there is an obvious awareness there. Like there's a problem with open air drug dealing in the area that's quite entrenched now in certain pockets. There's a violence that goes with that. There is a much greater degree of exposure to this type of thing than you get in any other typical community in Ireland. And that's a real negative.
It's not for lack of effort or trying on the part of the community. The huge number of really dedicated people working in the community voluntary sector in Ballymun. They know what solutions are needed. They put in huge work, go beyond the call of duty. But unfortunately, they've been kind of left
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
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Chapter 3: What advice do the leaflets provide for parents during gun violence?
He has to come straight home every single day. A teacher or principal of a school saying, yes, Tuesday was an exceptional event, but it adds to the sense that outdoor play in the area is increasingly challenging.
I'm wondering if there is a sense that the fear out there is shaping how parents parent their children from letting them walk home from school and feeling that they're safe to something as innocent as playing outside.
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.
I want to bring you in, Andrew, because you did write a report, as we mentioned there at the top of the programme, back in 2021. Has the situation improved since that report was published or indeed gotten worse?
I think it varies. I think there's two stories coming from Ballymun. Like I live here, I have children growing up here. And I do see progress. I do see improvements, particularly with children. They're staying longer in school, far more are staying on to do their leaving cert. Big increase in the numbers going to college.
But this is a millstone, this crime, the drugs in the area is a millstone around the communities next that's holding us back. We're ready to move on and we need help. We need help from the government to get to the next phase. And one big aspect is just
the amount of policing or the lack of policing that we have in the area, despite being one of the, you know, there's a very small number of communities with very high levels of crime. Unfortunately, Ballymun is one of those with open-air drug dealing that occasionally spills over into this kind of violence.
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Chapter 4: How has gun violence impacted the community's perception of safety?
I just think about children like that getting a leaflet like this, you know, heading home to mummy or daddy after school saying, oh, here's my lunchbox, here's my homework and here's this leaflet. Many of the kids will be well able to read and know what it says. Do you think these kind of safety measures...
that obviously the community feel are necessary at this point, do they impact a child's sense of security, a child's childhood experience?
Yes, they do. There's no doubt about it. And, you know, what's happened, people will be shocked about it. And what we really need is, and what's been shown to work, is we need a guard of presence on the ground. And we've been calling that for years, Conor, myself, all of the politicians in the local area saying, And we're just not getting that.
We need visible policing, guards walking the streets. And, you know, you hear this a lot, communities are all looking for more guards. But there's a small number of communities that have very different levels of crime, where they've got open drug dealing, there's threats of intimidations and violence that sometimes spills into violent disputes where there's shootings. pipe bombs.
Chapter 5: What historical context contributes to the current violence in Ballymun?
And we're one of those half a dozen communities in the country. And if each of those communities got 50 extra guards to walk the beat, it would dramatically change the situations on the ground. That's been shown here in Ireland and Limerick when they did that. It's been shown internationally.
We know that New York, the whole revolution of Comstat, where they really got control over crime was when they identified where the crime spots were, and they put in large numbers of police. It transformed the city. We can do that here in Ireland. We have the resources. There's 14,500 guards in the country.
500 guards to go to the 10 worst, most affected communities in the country would transform the situation. We can do it. It's a matter of political will. Let's get on and do it. Can this incident shape the future for us? Can it get us over the line to get the resources we need? I hope it does.
You talk there about the need for policing, but I think it is worth pointing out, Connor, that that incident that materialised a couple of days ago, that did seem to come from the fact that there were police patrolling the area.
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.
There's been a lot of coverage this week, given what we've seen materialise in Ballymun, about criminals who are operating in this area, that they are just waiting to pounce on, to groom any child in the area that they feel could be vulnerable to becoming involved in criminality. Do you see that, Conor?
Grooming's a really serious problem. You see kids as young as 12 getting dragged into carrying drugs, minding drugs, working on behalf of drug dealers and I think there's not been an appropriate response to that. It is, I think, again, a problem that's concentrated in maybe those 10 areas or 12 areas or whatever you'd name across Ireland. It's not something you're seeing nationally.
It's concentrated. And I think there needs to be a bespoke response to the problem as it arises in these kind of areas that are worst affected.
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Chapter 6: How are children in Ballymun affected by the fear of violence?
Parents need to take some responsibility, says one texter. The guards have no power, says another, and there have been more than 1.5 billion euros spent on regeneration projects in the area. At some point, the people of the community will need to take responsibility for their own actions. So lots of people seem to be shifting the blame back onto the community there.
I would love to hear from those who are living within their community. Let me know your thoughts and your opinions on the 087 1400 106 or email clareburn at 087
Newstalk.com The Clare Byrne Show with Aviva Insurance. Weekday mornings at 9 on Newstalk. Conversation that counts.