Last week, we learned about a man who suffered a cheekbone fracture after being attacked by a gang of teenagers in Dublin. Dr Santosh Yada, who is Indian, was walking home from having dinner with a friend when he was launched on by a gang of youths in West Dublin on Sunday 27th July.
The data scientist told the Irish Times that he was left with injuries all over his body after being attacked by “a gang of five or six teenagers”, who he says approached him from behind.
“They hit me so much, and then just ran away. I was on the pavement, bleeding everywhere,” he said. “It all happened quite fast. I wasn’t prepared for such things to happen”.
It comes on the heels of a shocking attack on 19th July, which saw another Indian man assaulted by a group of teenagers in Kilnamanagh, Tallaght. The group of attackers falsely accused the man of acting inappropriately around children before and after he was set upon.
It is heavily implied in the reporting of these dreadful crimes that they are purely about race. Indeed, the gardaí have labelled some incidents as ‘racially motivated’ – and that must be noted. But it is only part of the full picture when it comes to discussing the much broader problem: Ireland’s feral teenagers.
You can talk about anti-racism until you’re blue in the face, and let there be no doubt that there are those who will use these vile attacks to push open borders and diversity training as solutions. But none of those supposed suggestions will deter hoodlums. Most people, according to polls, believe that we have an immigration problem in this country – and the vast majority of people, at the same time, know that violence and thuggery is not the answer.
Middle Ireland and working class communities rising up against obscene levels of immigration in the middle of a crippling housing crisis are not to blame for delinquent juvenile behaviour. Concerns around immigration and attacks on taxi drivers are, in my own opinion, no more linked than was the genuine anger about the Parnell Square stabbing and the droves of young men who seized on that outrage to riot and smash the windows of Foot-locker to steal trainers.
What is more important is that we have a look at assaults on tourists, foreign nationals and locals alike, by teenagers, especially in our capital city, which increasingly looks and feels like a lawless pit. Once upon a time, the arrest of a teenager for a serious crime would have been considered noteworthy. People would have sat up, but now it is simply par for the course.
So much so that in February, we learned that judges were unable to send a number of alleged child offenders to Oberstown Children Detention Campus because it had reached full capacity. Such is the severity of our juvenile delinquency problem.
Assaults by feral teens are not hard to find. There are multiple examples from the courts in the last few months alone. One example from the end of May, when a Laois schoolboy (15) was sentenced to six months’ detention following a litany of convictions. It’s worth pointing out that the boy and another juvenile, despite being remanded in custody, were brought back to court because no beds were available in Oberstown.
More teenage crime? There are plenty of examples, especially in our lawless capital which has, surprise surprise, seen a sharp fall in tourist numbers. There were the assaults on English amateur footballers in Dublin two summers ago. There was the horrible case on Store Street that same summer on American tourist Stephen Termini. The teenager who instigated the attack on the US man was just 16 at the time, and had nine previous convictions, including a conviction in 2022 for assault and violent disorder in what the court was told were “similar circumstances.”
The two other boys involved in the savage attack were only 15 and 14, and pleaded guilty to assault causing serious harm; they were sentenced to 32 months and 26 months in detention last year.
Earlier this summer, two teenagers appeared before Portlaoise District Court accused of stealing cars in Kildare. The young boys, who have alleged links to the so called ‘lucky dip gang’ were sent to detention in Oberstown Detention Centre in May.
The Irish Independent reported last week that a teenager who had been bailed for allegedly taking part in the torture of a woman was part of a gang arrested over a violent home invasion in Dublin. The aggravated burglary took place in Shankill last Wednesday night.
There have been multiple worrying incidents involving teenagers on public transport – a passenger was “beaten to a pulp” by a gang of youths, leaving the Dublin Bus vehicle soaked in blood last year. The passenger, a man, was allegedly attacked by youths using belts, on the bus which was travelling on the N4 towards Blanchardstown.
Back in March, youth appeared in the Children’s Court over the now-viral screwdriver video incident on Dublin Bus. The video, which was shared widely on messaging platforms, showed an Irish teenager threatening another passenger with a long screwdriver in his hand.
To bring it back to our tourism crisis, Extra.ie revealed last September how groups of tourists who had visited the Guinness Storehouse were attacked with rocks and hammers by a gang of teenagers.
It is true that foreign nationals have been impacted, but to make this a story about migrant crime is simply disingenuous. Most of Dublin is aware that teenage gangs have been on rampage in the city for years, (including in the south inner city where tourists have been attacked) with absolutely no fear of consequences. Their reign of terror is indiscriminate. According to multiple news reports, locals in the area have been complaining since 2022, but that many of the pubescent suspects have already received the benefit of a juvenile diversion officer, which allows them to avoid prosecution.
This all goes hand in hand with a report, released today by the Probation Service, which shows that the number of teenage offenders has reached its highest level in ten years. The annual report shows there were 609 referrals for children aged between 12 and 17 in 2024 – a 10% increase on the previous year, and higher than any other time since 2015.
567 boys and 42 girls were referred for probation, which means a sentence for a crime served in the community under the supervision of a probation officer, instead of in custody. According to the report, there were 764 new court referrals to the service in relation to ‘young people,’ those under 18.
The offences which resulted in the most referrals to the service were theft (18.5%), assault (17.4%), drug offences (16.1%), public order offences (9.9%), road traffic offences (7.5%), and burglary (5.7%).
The findings included in today’s report reinforce other findings which point to a significant rise in teenagers committing crime in Ireland.
This also ties in with Minister for Children, Norma Foley’s rejection of claims that the Oberstown Children’s Detention facility is experiencing ‘dangerously low staffing levels,’, after a serious incident at the centre in June left nine staff members injured. In June, RTE reported that a staff member had been left with “life changing injuries” following a violent attack there. It is the case, according to Fórsa Media Relations Director Niall Shanahan, that there are not enough staff to cover shifts so they’re operating below capacity.
Our politicians are telling us things that are simply untrue. If you visit Dublin, you can see the societal breakdown and chaos with your own eyes. We should discuss the factors that lie behind such a problem which currently shows no signs of improvement. Politicians, especially those on the left, would likely point to things like underinvestment in communities as a source of the problem.
Maybe it is a contributor, but, equally, we should talk about the growth in broken homes and the rising number of young males in Ireland who lack a positive male influence in their lives. Then there’s also the influence of pornography, and the glorification of violence in video games, and now even on platforms like TikTok and X.
There is also, of course, the breakdown of law and order in Dublin, where you can walk for yards without seeing a Garda in sight. The blame for the creation of this kind of lackadaisical environment surely lies with politicians; the same politicians who are determined to blame anyone other than themselves for the Ireland we now live in.
Whatever the causes, it must be an open discussion. The root cause is what matters here, and is the only thing that will help us to find a solution.