Girls’ brawl: 

we must know what gardaí do next

It has to be said that the video of teenage girls in school uniforms clattering and punching each other, pulling hair out of their heads and wrestling on the ground in the Mall, Tralee in broad daylight and full public view represents a shocking new low.

It confirms a serious decline in standards as far as violence is concerned, a rapid deterioration in behaviour, even in public. It’s as if we’re now confronted by a growing segment of our own community who literally couldn’t give a fiddlers what anyone thinks of them.

This particular incident is being investigated by the gardaí who are looking through CCTV and asking for witnesses to come forward. There is reasonable confidence that the gardaí already know who was involved in this outrageous exhibition of anti-social behaviour and that action will follow.

However, there is a problem which is inherent to the current criminal justice system.

Because the system now has a default position that seeks to keep teenage troublemakers and first-time offenders away from courts and diverts them towards de-escalation and rehabilitation, it means that the public cannot see how the gardaí manage such incidents.

And, as a consequence, gardaí are often criticised for doing nothing when, in fact, they have confronted the young people involved and may have resolved matters by altering behaviour without the need for hauling the offenders into court.

But it doesn’t have to be like this.

There appears to be no specific legal restriction, for example, on gardaí issuing a statement saying that a well-known incident involving a child or children (under 18) had come to their attention and had been addressed by way of their Youth Diversion Programme.

At least then the public wouldn’t be left wondering if the gardaí had failed to act.

Public confidence in the gardaí has been eroded time and time again by repeated examples of gross anti-social incidents. This feeds into a sense of hopelessness amongst members of the public who now feel less safe walking the streets.

Justice Minister Big Jim O’Callaghan and his Cabinet colleagues like Norma Foley, need to get their heads around bare-faced criminality involving teenagers before it’s too late.

Before public confidence slips away entirely.

So, let’s say it again: we need more gardaí on the beat in our towns and villages. And we need to know what gardaí have done when anti-social behaviour occurs.

(PS: I got stopped by gardaí, with a lot of others, at the traffic checkpoint just outside Castleisland, on the road to Abbeyfeale, last week. The last time I noticed a Garda check at that location was during the Covid pandemic in 2020. Which means there’ll be another garda check there in or about September 2032. Put it in your diaries!)