SOCIAL Democrats councillor Elisa O’Donovan told senior Limerick Gardaí that local migrant communities have reported a rise in racially-motivated torrents of abuse on the city’s streets since the riots that erupted in Dublin last November.
Speaking at Monday’s meeting of the Joint Policing Sub-Committee of the Metropolitan District, Cllr O’Donovan wanted to know if An Garda Síochána had also seen a rise in racially-motivated attacks in the city centre.
“As a councillor for Limerick City West, I represent a very diverse population with lots of migrant communities. After the riots in Dublin last year, I was contacted by many migrant communities to say that they had felt that they had received a lot more abuse on the streets and felt much more unsafe in the city centre,” she told the meeting.
“Young women and young girls, who might be wearing hijabs and things like that, have had names and different things called out to them. I actually saw one of these incidents on Wickham Street one day. I said to the girls they could report this to the Gardaí and they said no – so I am wondering if you have noticed an increase in that? Because it is definitely something being reported to me.”
Cllr O’Donovan suggested that many in local migrant communities “don’t feel confident or safe or know how” to approach Gardaí to make complaints about the racially-motivated attacks they are experiencing in the city.
Superintendent Andrew Lacey, of Henry Street Garda Station, said that this was not an issue Gardaí were encountering in Limerick.
“From my perspective, it wouldn’t visibly jump out at me from my side of the house,” Superintendent Lacey responded.
“Limerick City North would have a lot of demonstrations that are happening at weekends and that’s maybe a window to seeing some of the underbelly.
“Thankfully, over the last number of months, we’ve had regular demonstrations for various reasons, every Saturday nearly, and we’ve not really had that underbelly within Limerick City.
“That’s probably a testament to the people themselves that we haven’t seen it.”
