Urgent calls have been made to stop the plague of knife crime that has left residents 'living in fear' in Dublin's North Inner City.
Four Dublin City Councillors from the area - Nial Ring, Cieran Perry, Christy Burke, and Anthony Flynn - have come together to demand a crackdown after a number of knife incidents in the last ten days.
Central to their argument is bringing back and enacting legislation doubling the punishment for knife crime to ten years.
Cllr Ring said: "The impact of the recent knife attacks on our streets cannot be underestimated.
"People are literally living in fear and looking to the authorities for action.
"The four independent councillors in the Central Area are now, through this motion, calling for this action and the Minister must answer this call.
"[Fianna Fail TD] Jim O'Callaghan's proposed legislation, if enacted, will send out a powerful signal that knife crime will not be tolerated."
Cllr Perry added: "Legislation is one part of the jigsaw in tackling this scourge but ultimately we need buy-in from the affected communities and in particular, the young people in the areas.
"The four Independent councillors intend to spearhead a ground-up initiative to highlight the knife risk to our youth."
Cllr Burke believes an immediate meeting with senior Gardaí as well as senior officials from the Department of Justice is needed to sort the problems in the area out.
He said: "A meeting with senior Gardaí is essential as we need to know what policing response is in place and what additional resources are needed to equip the Gardaí to effectively deal with this problem.
"If there are any barriers to tackling this problem we need to know what they are and what is needed to remove them."
Cllr Flynn concluded: "We have had an alarming increase in knife crime within the North Inner City over the last number of months.
"What is required is an increase in visual police presence, active community policing and engagement with young people.
"The reintroduction of Jim O'Callaghan's private member's bill will be the first step in reassuring the city that knife crime will be taken seriously."
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