Lack of Gardaí has led to a surge in “aggressive” shoplifting, a shop owner has said. 

Michael O’Sullivan owns a shop on Talbot Street in Dublin’s north inner city and testified that crime has “always been an issue” in the area but believes it has got much worse since the pandemic.

“The law is not adequately dealing with small shoplifting, which is what we would have in our shop,” he told The Hard Shoulder. 

“Since COVID, I have found that it has accelerated and the aggression that we get when tackling people makes it very dangerous and very uncomfortable to try and operate a business.” 

Talbot Street is close to O’Connell Street, where much of the violence in last month’s riots took place, and Mr O’Sullivan said his staff are increasingly “afraid” of the shoplifters. 

“The problem for me is it’s becoming such an issue now that it has damaged my business and making it very difficult to operate a business here in the city centre,” he said. 

“My concern is that we don’t have enough Guards, that is the problem.” 

'Too dangerous'

Mr O’Sullivan said every day four or five people will come into the shop and “take what they want and feel that it’s okay to do that”.  

Usually, he confronts them but he often has to back down because it feels “too dangerous” at times. 

The result of this is that he is “always on edge” when at work and he always deals with it himself, telling staff not to put themselves in a potentially difficult position. 

“I would ring the Guards if something was serious but, generally, we’re dealing with most of them ourselves,” he said. 

“The Guards would be here all day, every day at the moment if we were to call them every time we’d an incident.” 

In July, Justice Minister Helen McEntee announced a €10 million funding boost to cover an extra 20,000 extra Garda shifts in Dublin.

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Main image: Gardaí on patrol in Dublin. Image: Artur Widak/NurPhoto