Clare Gardaí Urging People To Manage Alcohol Intake Today

Unfortunately, with alcohol and drugs coming into it, you know, we will be having a lot of

patrols in around the areas where we feel people will be congregating or celebrating.

The nightclubs, the bars will say all those areas. Unfortunately, what happens then is,

you know, if people don't drink responsibly, we do find on weekends like this that

people lose their temper, get involved in scenarios, get arrested, are brought in,

are processed, and then end up with criminal convictions associated with even simple

drunkenness on the street itself. Or it can be more serious when it's involving assaults or

altercations that happen. And, you know, unfortunately, they're happening, you know, a lot

over weekends, bank holiday weekends included, and this one will be no different. So,

what we're hoping for is that look, we will be increasing our availability in expected hotspots

and focusing on preventing, you know, even, you know, public urination, you know, the violence

and then there's some of the behavior which really adds to, I suppose, the people feeling

a little bit unsafe indoors environment. So, it's all about keeping people safe. It's about

members of the public being able to move freely in a safe environment around the towns and

villages or wherever they congregate for this bank holiday weekend. So, we're again asking people to

look, if there are incidents that need to be reported of anti-social behavior, report them,

on garish icon, it will respond to those incidents. And again, children and parents are parents of

children to really be aware of where your children are over this weekend, you know, and try and make

sure that they're not getting involved in scenarios which could potentially then affect their

futures if it was previous convictions or getting a criminal conviction. And then that can have

obviously ramifications from going forward. And without wishing to minimise any of this behavior,

do a lot of these instances come down to people losing the run of themselves on what is

a day over, as we said, a day of festivities and would you be advising people to go out,

enjoy themselves, but to do so in a safe manner and a manner that doesn't adversely affect anybody else?

Yeah, my experience with this is, you know, people who drink to excess or, you know, go out

in certain scenarios, they're defiant people when they're not drunk, but some people once they do

get intoxicated, behave in such a way that ends up in public order scenarios, ends up in

negative interactions with other members of the public, culminating, unfortunately, in

ourselves probably having to intervene. So I always find that if people go out in groups,

if they mind each other and there's one or two people responsible in those groups,

minding each other, it's far better for them to, you know, it just allows that safe environment to

happen. And again, everybody goes out, enjoys themselves and come home safely, and that's what we

all want of this weekend.