Irish Examiner view: Cork Crime series prompts us to seek out the roots of criminality

Irish Examiner

04-08-2025

Crime — as noted in the Irish Examiner today by retired garda sergeant Trevor Laffan — but also no doubt by you yourself, has always been with us, and probably always will in some shape or form.
We wrote on these pages only in recent days about dodgy boxes, and how they constitute thievery; what might seem acceptable, maybe harmless to some is, regardless, illegal.
What we report in print and online in Monday's edition of the Irish Examiner, however, is something meatier: The figures and breakdowns of the crimes reported to gardaí across Cork.
And the numbers are quite stark, with the city centre outperforming for all the wrong reasons.
Following our focus on courts in June, the 'Irish Examiner' is exploring crime data from garda stations in our Cork Crime series in print and online here on Monday and Tuesday, August 4 and 5.
As Ann Murphy notes, 'the total sum of crimes reported to gardaí in Anglesea St is just over 800% higher than the national average', even if some stations get reports below the average.
Theft and public order offences topped the rankings, with Anglesea St — which serves the largest population — recording 3,328 crimes overall last year, of which 1,309 were thefts and related offences and 852 concerned public order.
This was also borne out by an Irish Examiner special report on jail sentencing in June, where an analysis of published court reports over a five-year period showed that theft was the most common offence.
Readers may also recall our report last week that some offenders are serving no jail time — the case in point was an individual who spat in a garda's face, but while receiving a custodial sentence was not committed to prison because Cork's prisons are already far beyond capacity.
A fifth of individuals who received a prison sentence in the cases analysed by the Irish Examiner were homeless. This suggests our problems are as much systemic as social: A theft may be rooted in desperation or need as much as it is opportunity.
That is not to underplay the impact of crime on the victim, and indeed in that investigation in June, court reporter Liam Heylin emphasised how things had changed in recent years to put more focus on the victims of these crimes. This is only right.
Far more needs to be done on the roots of crime, rather than looking to expand prison capacity just because. We can do better for all our citizens.
We owe RNLI volunteers so much
Ireland would be lost without its volunteers. They are the ones that keep the country's arts, social, disability, care, and sporting systems going, often putting in an enormous effort for little or no plaudits.
But we must always remember that these are the people who, through groups such as the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), not only commit to the good of the wider community through acts of service, but acts of actual life saving as well. Just last week, the lifeboats, largely crewed by volunteers, rescued 11 people in two days in Cork, including two back-to-back missions out of Kinsale.
That's likely not even the amount of people it rescued across the week in Cork, let alone Ireland. And while there were no injuries or losses of life, the water spares nobody and what might start as a yacht without power could, depending on the weather conditions, escalate quite quickly.
Now scale that up: The RNLI has 43 stations on the island of Ireland alone, with volunteers active 24 hours a day. The charity estimates it has saved some 140,000 lives across Ireland and Britain since it was founded in the 19th century.
This all simply serves as a reminder that Ireland cannot function without people giving of their time and energy without the expectation of reward, and that in many cases each one of us could face into a situation where we rise or fall based solely on the kindness of strangers.
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Nobel prize is more than a trinket
There was a time — not very long ago chronologically, seemingly an infinity ago mentally — when awards such as the Nobel Peace Prize meant something. They were meant to commend and celebrate actual achievements, or strident efforts to make the world a safer place.
So seeing Donald Trump's press spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt, using one of her regular briefings to read out a list of conflicts and say 'it is about time Donald Trump was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize' makes it all just another trinket, really.
The open declaration by Pakistan, before it was bombed by India, and Israel, engaged in a brutal war against Gaza, that they were nominating Trump for the award again cheapens it.
Let's set aside the dubious nature of his interventions in the conflicts she mentioned. The recent dispute between India and Pakistan, for instance, was on the list but both countries have said they heard nothing from him in the run-up to their ceasefire. There has been some American involvement in ending the conflict between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with a summit on the issues held in Washington last week, but so far it has not proved at all binding.
And anyway, Trump noted when discussing it that as part of it, 'we're getting for the United States a lot of the mineral rights from Congo'. So more asset stripper than peacemaker.
It makes his naked pursuit of Nobel laurels all the more galling. To him, and his supporters, it's just another political tool to stroke the ego of a man already showing signs of being disconnected from reality.
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