FORMER local election candidate, psychotherapist, and community advocate Suzzie Odeniyi has raised serious questions around safety in Limerick.
Following the recent attacks on Tobi Omoteso, a well-known local hip hop artist and instructor who was left permanently blind in one eye, and Scarlett Faulkner, a young mother who suffered catastrophic head injuries in an unconnected incident, the truth, Ms Odeniyi maintains, is simple – “the public is losing confidence”.
“People are beginning to question whether they are safe in their cars, on their streets, at public events, and in the city spaces they use every day. Behind the headlines are real people whose lives have been changed forever, families carrying unimaginable trauma, and a wider public now asking serious questions about the safety of everyday life in Limerick,” Ms Odeniyi told the Limerick Post this week.
“We cannot allow brutal road attacks, broad daylight assaults, and life-changing injuries to become something this city quietly absorbs. Limerick must not normalise this. We are losing confidence not because they lack resilience, but because they are no longer seeing consequences match the brutality.”
- External Walls: Up to €8,000 Grant
- Attic: Up to €1,500 Grant
- Cavity Walls: Up to €1,700 Grant
- Internal Dry Lining: Up to €4,500 Grant
Ms Odeniyi believes that the people of Limerick are entitled to visible reassurance that every available Garda resource is being deployed to identify, apprehend, and bring those responsible before the courts without delay.
She called on the Mayor, Gardaí, local councillors and TDS, and “every representative involved in the Local Community Safety Partnership to urgently come together and publicly fast-track Limerick’s Community Safety Plan”.
“The public is now entitled to ask a direct question: If the structures are there, where is the urgency, where are the timelines, and where is the visible plan to restore public confidence and order?”
She continued: “At this point, delay is no longer a system issue. It is a leadership issue.”
“People committing premeditated violent crimes appear to have more confidence in the weakness of the system than the public has in its strength. That perception is dangerous, and it is one that elected officials, An Garda Síochána, and city leadership now need to confront directly.”
Ms Odeniyi told this reporter that she would like to see a firmer and more visible approach, one that ensures deliberate, life-changing acts of violence are met with swift consequences, clear accountability, and a justice response strong enough to act as a real deterrent.
“The people of Limerick deserve to see a clear publication date for the Limerick Community Safety Plan, supports for young people at risk, direct victim and family support pathways after violent incidents, measurable actions to disrupt repeat violent offending, firmer justice and prosecution response to premeditated violent crime and stronger safety planning around public events, roads, and high-risk locations,” she said.
“The people of this city should not be left waiting for another permanent injury, another family in crisis, or another public outcry before visible action is taken.
“Limerick deserves better than reassurance. Limerick deserves delivery. And right now, Limerick deserves leadership that moves at the speed this moment demands.”