I wrote this as an email in response to a Senator who dropped a flyer into Little Deer about a public meeting with Gardaí about safety in Stoneybatter. I wrote it because I'm not a very strong public speaker. I'm making it a blog post because I've already written it so why not share:
This is Matthew Melis, Stoneybatter homeowner and owner of Little Deer Comics on Manor Place. I won't be attending the Monday 16th meeting but I wanted to submit my concerns. I have a shop to run so I will try to be brief but it is very frustrating to hear of increased Gardai presence in Stoneybatter.
Increased spending on Gardaí represents austerity and cuts to desperately needed community services.
The largest amount of money Little Deer has ever lost in our 5 years in business was due to Gardai's "light touch" of the far right and the resulting Dublin race riots last year, which destroyed our walk-in business for 3 weeks during the vital holiday season shopping and left Little Deer saddled with thousands debt we're still carrying almost a year later.
Similarly, Gardai terrorized Stoneybatter with the eviction of our neighbours on Prussia street in 2021. A building that remains vacant and derelict 3 years later. The Gardai attacked our trans and immigrant neighbours on behalf of a landlord that poisons Stoneybatter with his greed and land hoarding.
As for waste management. I don't share the traditional Irish view of "illegal dumping." Because what I see in Dublin is a total lack of public infrastructure: no street cleaners, not enough bins, bottle banks and bring centres and abysmal private services. Spending time in any other major city in the world and you see fleets of street cleaners, bins everywhere and a coherent public waste management system. But Stoneybatter lacks bins (we even lost one of the few we have recently on Manor Street!), we're lucky if we see a street cleaner once a month and Dublin's privatised waste management system is not fit for purpose. Little Deer's recycling gets picked up 50% of the time and we've been here for years.
Since I'm already spending more time on this than I wanted to, here's a list of things I'd rather Dublin spend money on than Gardai:
Bins
Bring Centres
Bottle Banks
Benches (real benches people can sit on, not the anti-humane-design nonsense we have at every bus stop)
TREES
Playgrounds
Roller Rinks
Public Swimming Pools
Skate Parks
Dirt Bike Tracks (if you care about "scrambler bikes" give kids a safe place to ride that's not down Manor Street)
Bonfire parks (O'Devaney Gardens was taken away from disenfranchised kids and now they're being punished for it! we can't give teens nothing to do and nowhere to go and then call the Gardai on them)
Traffic calming (not speed bumps, but physical obstructions like the successful Oxmantown Trees that has done wonders for bringing the speed limit below 30kmh)
Eviction bans
Rent caps
Use-it-or-lose-it laws to stop the land hoarding that's choking Stoneybatter
Compulsory purchase orders on every derelict Stoneybatter building
Squatters rights
Drug & Alcohol abuse centers
AirBnB ban
HOMES
Reopening the Fruit Markets
Public Libraries
Community Centres
Art Galleries
Music Venues
Theatre Venues
Event spaces
Nightclubs
Video Game Arcades
Increased Luas capacity
Increased ventilation and HEPA filters on our ancient public school buildings so our kids stop catching Covid!
All of those things would make Stoneybatter safer and would be investing in our community and giving teens and young people actual things to do and places to go instead of taking money from our community and funneling it to Gardai's pockets so they can escort the far right into Dublin.
America and the UK have shown police, Gardai and the military to be a bottomless pit that will eat all public services and leave communities hollowed out if they're given the chance to. I would rather not see Ireland go any further down that path.
Thanks for taking the time to read this. I hope you reconsider prioritising the Gardai in Stoneybatter's safety. There are many safety solutions beyond the carceral.