Drug dealing and intimidation raised by residents in council properties

“I WAS contacted by residents in this estate about the burning of fires, intimidation and also the open drug dealing in Council properties”.

This is according to Councillor Paul Gogarty (Ind) as he spoke at last month’s Lucan Council meeting on the local authority’s anti-social report.

“I was contacted by a lot of decent residents in this estate, I raised this motion before at the end of 2023/2024 about fires being lit, about open drug dealing where this particular estate adjoins an area,” said Cllr Gogarty.

The Independent representative feels that both the Council and An Garda Síochána need to be involved to address the issue.

“The management of the Council would be aware of it but it’s still going on, it can’t be exclusively dealt with as a Garda issue, it also has to be an estate management issue in that a lot of the individuals who are engaged in the burning of the fires, the intimidating of residents and also the open drug dealing are in Council properties or in Approved Housing Body properties,” he said.

The Lucan representative also suggested a measure that the Council could carry out to resolve the issue. “…maybe patrolling the area, see if they can identify the individuals concerned … and a lot of them [the residents] are older in this longer established estate adjacent to a newer one, so I’d hope there is a proactive approach being taken in that regard because it’s six months later and the problems are still going on,” he said.

Fiona Hendley, Acting Senior Executive Officer addressed Cllr Gogarty’s concerns: “The Estate Management team work very closely with An Garda Síochána.

“We are actually setting up a meeting next week with the Guards and in conjunction with the youth services in Lucan and that area to see if we can address the various issues with the youth in Balgaddy and certain estates .. so they are working proactively on that, so hopefully that will bring some fruition to the issues that are going on out there.”

Ms Hendley also addressed Cllr Gogarty’s suggested patrolling measure.

“If we can identify people and they are identified as council tenants or children of them they will be addressed under our anti-social strategy and the various enforcement issues will be addressed that way,” said Ms Hendley.

Councillor Madeleine Johansson (PBP) said she felt that the Council’s racism reporting measure was not working as there were no reported instances of racism in 2023 and none reported so far in 2024.

Cllr Johansson felt that instances of racism were often accompanied with, for example, reports of violence, intimidation or harassment.

“And so the racism part of that doesn’t end up being reported because it would have to be a separate item…

“We are seeing an increase in racism and it’s not reported because of the structure of the way it is reported, I was told by the Community Safety Officer,” she said.

Ms Hendley acknowledged that the numbers of reported racism were low but said that it was a very difficult issue.

“In relation to the racism … we know the issue is quite large out there on the street.

We are reviewing our anti-social strategy … people can report racism but I suppose it’s trying to categorise it … we are very much aware of the issues and we are trying to address them as best we can,” she said.