Dublin City Council staff have faced 166 physical assaults from January 2018 to August 2022.
Figures released under the Freedom of Information Act 2014 also show there have been 197 instances of Dublin City Council staff being verbally assaulted during the same period. The number of such cases recorded by DCC is far greater than the other three Dublin local authorities.
South Dublin County Council did not release figures regarding physical assaults on staff, but said there were 49 instances of verbal assault between January 2018 and November 2022. During the same period, Fingal County Council recorded 41 verbal assaults, ten physical assaults and nine physical and verbal assaults on staff.
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Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council have records of eighteen assaults on staff from January 2018 to November 2022. The majority of these were verbal threats or abusive language but one incident noted a staff member from the Water Services department being bitten by a dog during the course of a survey.
Last May, Dublin City Council chief Owen Keegan raised concerns that litter wardens who challenge litter louts in blackspots are at risk of being the victim of a "serious assault".
Mr Keegan told councillors from the North Central Area Committee the system to tackle littering "doesn't work". He said: "The reality is the system of enforcement doesn’t work."
“We don’t have a right to require people to identify themselves or prove the identity they give us. The people involved in serious dumping when they are tackled by a litter warden just give us an incorrect name and that’s the end of it, because there is nothing we can do.”
Mr Keegan added that he isn't comfortable sending litter wardens into litter black spots as they are at risk of being attacked. “In the really serious black spots we have had an issue about serious assaults on litter wardens when they challenged people," he said.
"It is very difficult for me to put people into a situation where there is a high risk they will be assaulted.”
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