Our great international city deserves powerful governance structures, subject to checks and balances, to oversee the capital’s operation and management

Dublin is a great international capital city. It is an exciting place to live, work and visit. Although, in an Irish context, it is viewed alongside our other cities such as Cork, Limerick and Galway, its real comparators are major European cities such as London, Amsterdam and Berlin.

There have been calls for changes to garda recruitment after figures revealed that 71 gardaí resigned from the force so far this year.

Figures accurate to the end of June also show a further 172 retired in the first six months of the year.

Fianna Fáil TD Jim O’Callaghan has called for the policy of mandatory retirement at the age of 60 to be reconsidered.

Gardaí should be recruited from among Irish emigrants to Australia, and members of the force allowed to work beyond the age of 60 instead of retiring, a TD has said.

Innovative thinking is needed to stop the rise in crime and the decline in garda numbers, according to Fianna Fáil justice spokesman Jim O’Callaghan.

Fianna Fáil’s Justice spokesperson Jim O’Callaghan has called for a change “in the terms and conditions” of garda recruitment in a bid to encourage people to join the force.

There was a recruitment crisis, there were 14,000 members of An Garda Síochána, the same level as 20 years ago while the population had increased significantly since then, he told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland.

In June of this year on the birthday of William Butler Yeats I was asked by Sandymount and Merrion Residents’ Association to recite one of Yeats’ poems in Sandymount Green.
I chose “Come Gather Round Me Parnellites” in memory of my late friend Frank Callanan who was a great Parnellite.

The hate crime bill could end up criminalising people because of ill-considered abusive comments made at the time of an offence, when in fact hatred did not motivate their offence; also the ‘other genders’ part of the bill needs revisiting

Myself and Fianna Fáíl have been calling for a while that we need a separate designated public transport unit within an Garda Síochána.

Jim O’Callaghan reacts to #DublinAfterDark documentary highlighting anti-social behaviour.

In recent days we have again seen horrific acts of violence perpetrated with knives.
Unfortunately, the possession of knives has become much more widespread in our society. This is a trend that needs to be reversed through legislative change and education.