A new community safety plan for Dublin’s north inner-city is essentially making up for a shortfall of Gardaí.
Newstalk Breakfast presenter Jonathan Healy was reacting to the proposal, which would bring together suggestions from Gardaí, Tusla, the HSE, youth services and business groups.
The plan contains 50 recommendations and suggests audits of streets in the capital to improve lighting and cleanliness.
Jonathan said there is one element he can't understand.
"The one thing I cannot get my head around in the reports from this particular plan are community safety wardens," he said.
"If you dive into that, they say their job will be to provide an increasing feeling of safety and act as additional opportunity to observe and report issues of concern for anti-social behaviour.
"I don't know what that means."
Gardaí on patrol in Dublin. Image: Artur Widak/NurPhotoJonathan said suggestions that these people would perform a myriad of services is 'nonsense'.
"They're also going to have to do waste management, tourist information and provide information to vulnerable members of the community about support services," he said.
"So, these are somehow magic people who cannot only help [to] enforce by-laws and the law, they can help people find places in community systems where they can get support with drugs.
"What a load of nonsense, who's going to do that job? What happens when one of them gets a box or worse?
"They're just making up for a shortfall in what's needed in north inner-city Dublin, which is actual Gardaí, who are there to respond when something happens.
"[Gardaí] are a visible presence on the ground and are there to enforce the law as it currently stands.
"The community safety wardens can't enforce bupkis - they're just effectively going to be extra bodies wandering around with no power."
Jonathan also queried where the funding will come from.
"The big fear that I have right now, and I have yet to be dissuaded, is that this is just a paper bag of big ideas that's going to be left out in the rain," he added.
