Confronting poverty - Justice, not geography, is the issue
The city’s crime rates are not by any means exceptional, as yesterday morning’s triple shooting in Dublin’s western suburb of Blanchardstown shows, but the city’s great, almost unbridgeable divisions are a huge challenge to the idea of a caring and equitable society.
The city is one of the most polarised in the Republic. Your address, and the fate that made it your address, have a disproportionate influence on your life, your education, your prospects and your fundamental happiness and security. It is one of the places where our society’s failings are at their starkest and most uncompromising.
Those lucky enough to live in Limerick’s middle-class, affluent areas live comfortable lives, rightly proud of their city and its achievements.
They have access to good education, sports facilities and a reassuring degree of communal stability and security. They can be and usually are good and comfortable places to live.
In a chilling contrast, those selected by the fates to live in Limerick’s poorest areas endure the most disadvantaged electoral districts in the State. They live in a city that records Ireland’s highest suicide rates, instances of self-harm and marital breakdown.
Geography is just a metric — justice is the issue.
Those communities have been destroyed by organised crime, criminal feuds and community-wrecking anti-social behaviour and an overwhelmed or ignored education system.
All of these difficulties are fuelled by poverty, crime and drugs.
The situation is made even more distressing by the fact that the 2007 Limerick Regeneration project, which was launched with great optimism, goodwill and considerable State resources, has, despite considerable effort, failed to break the grip that poverty-related crime holds on so many of the city’s residents.
People living in poorer areas suffer the negative impact of crime just as profoundly as anyone else.
Research published by UCC’s Dr Niamh Hourigan (see page 8) suggests that “while the poverty... impacted deeply... they struggled most profoundly with the fear of surviving alongside families... engaged in... criminal activity. These vulnerable residents were the victims of systems of local intimidation which were built in many cases around the anti-social behaviour of minors”.
A decade ago the Children Act (2001) raised the age of criminal responsibility from seven to 12 but there is little or nothing in place to deal with those under 12 involved in crime. Once again we are creating a huge problem by not dealing with it early enough.
There is too the shabby hypocrisy of middle-class hand-wringing while indulging in recreational drug use.
Though weekend drug-users may prefer fair-trade coffee and organic chicken for ethical reasons, the connection between buying cocaine or cannabis and the exploitation of children on these impoverished estates by drug gangs is ignored.
Limerick’s problems are not unique but they require huge commitment and resources to resolve.
Even at this grim economic moment we must, even if only for the most selfish reasons, do all we can to try to help families caught in the double bind of poverty and crime.
