30 people assaulted daily in street violence

MORE than 30 people a day are assaulted in drink-related street violence, new Garda figures show.

A recent crackdown on late-night violence and drunkenness shows there were 57,000 public order offences in the last seven months - on average more than 240 a day.

"If you count 57,000 detections, the work-rate ratio would be a success, but it can be seen as a worrying trend," Garda spokesman Supt John Farrelly said yesterday.

The crackdown, called Operation Encounter, was launched by Garda Commissioner Pat Byrne on February 22 and targets pubs, nightclubs, fast food outlets and other venues where there is a significant potential for disorder.

The figures include offences up to October 15 and show that public drunkenness accounted for over a third of all offences, with threatening or abusive behaviour the next biggest problem.

There were also 371 cases detected where alcohol was sold to people underage.

Supt Farrelly said that 118 pubs and clubs had received convictions for this - involving a closure order of seven days for a first offence and 30 days for subsequent offences.

Gardai had also caught 830 underage people buying or drinking alcohol.

However, Supt Farrelly said not all 57,000 offences would lead to prosecutions. Many offenders, if underage, could be referred to the juvenile system while others may be cautioned.

Supt Farrelly said there were no figures yet for a new tactic under the operation whereby offenders would be brought before the courts as soon as possible, rather than released and later summonsed. A spokeswoman for Victim Support said: "We are very aware of an increase in assaults, and gratuitous violence. These figures are interesting, particularly the correlation between drink and incidents."

Justice Minister Michael McDowell said that trouble outside large pubs had caused a problem with underage drinking, adding that the licensing system could be altered to control their size: "These large establishments not only create noise and nuisance for local residents, but make controls on underage drinking more difficult to enforce."

"When large numbers of people emerge from these premises at closing time, there is inevitably an increased risk of public disorder and we have seen the alarming effects of this on our streets in recent years," he said.