No additional “external resources” will be deployed on Luas services for the Halloween period, Transport Infrastructure Ireland has confirmed.
It comes amid growing criticism of anti-social behaviour in Dublin over recent months.
While gardaí will be working with Luas operator Transdev on a specific Halloween plan, Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) confirmed that security on the Luas over the Halloween period will be provided by the 55 existing security staff “without the requirement for additional external resources”.
Read More: Friday and weekend Luas users warned of operating time changes on Red Line
The information was given to Social Democrats’ co-leader Catherine Murphy following parliamentary questions.
“Transdev, the Luas operator, has a specific Halloween Security plan in place, which included meetings with An Garda Síochána before and during Halloween,” TII said.
“Luas security will be redeployed to meet the demands when and where they are required.
“The mobile response vehicle unit will be actively used to respond to any event across Red and Green line operations.”
Irish Rail, meanwhile, told Deputy Murphy that “proactive Gardaí/Iarnrod Éireann operations” will be put in place for the Halloween season. They did not, however, divulge what their plan would be.
They added that they have recently increased security resources, with up to 20 security teams operating daily.
Irish Rail did not respond to requests for comment.
Deputy Murphy told the Irish Mirror that while she welcomes the fact that there is increased cooperation between transport companies and the gardaí, there are occasions when security needs to be increased.
“Halloween got its origins in Irish culture and it should be an event that we enjoy and celebrate” she said.
“For a lot of people, it has become quite a menacing time when some people see it as legitimate to make it as difficult for others.
“That is one of the times of the year that there needs to be that heightened [security operations on public transport].
“There is a significant urban problem and there is a problem on the rail lines as well and it's really important to get to grips with that.”
Ms Murphy said that using public transport at night can be “off-putting” for a lot of people and that steps have to be taken to ensure that “anti-social behaviour” does not “drive people [away] from using public transport”.
She also welcomed comments from Irish Rail stating that the use of drug detector dogs has resulted in “a number of significant detections [...] where suspects attempted to use the rail network for the transportation of illicit substances”.
The garda press office was not, however, able to confirm how many times illegal substances were found on public transport, as there “aren’t specific location types recorded on our PULSE system for public transport providers”.
Ms Murphy said: “It is good to see that there were some interventions on mainline rail and it looks like there were arrests.
“One of the things that we had been told was constantly is that some of the mainline rail was being used to transfer and deal drugs.
“We're certainly starting to see coordination and improved response.”
There have been a number of calls for dedicated transport police to be established to tackle anti-social behaviour.
A recent survey conducted by Fianna Fáil found that 93% of the 1,300 people surveyed have witnessed some form of anti-social behaviour while using public transport.
More than 30% said they had been a victim of anti-social behaviour and 73% indicated that they had failed to report an incident of anti-social behaviour on public transport. Some 78% of respondents indicated their support for a dedicated garda public transport unit.
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