John McGuirk from Co Monaghan believes we have become "numb" as a society towards violent attacks taking place. Mr McGuirk who is the editor of the news outlet Gript.ie previously wrote a piece on crime, highlighting that we have become an "inherently violent society."
CSO crime figures from 2023 show a noted increase in homicide offences which include murder and manslaughter. With a rise in violent attacks reported across the Northern Sound region recently, John believes it's time to have a conversation nationally about how we got to this point as a society and what can be done to stop it; "30 years ago when I was 10 or 12 years of age, if there was a murder in the country it was a big event. Nowadays murders are only big events if they are exceptionally bad, we've become very tolerant of the phrase that Gardai are investigating after a man was found dead with stabs wounds, which is no longer shocking to us in society, it's no longer a crime that makes us sit-up. The crimes that make us sit up unfortunately are the ones that are exceptionally bad like the Aisling Murphy case, but the average crime no longer makes us sit up and have a big reaction to it so I think we are becoming numb to it."
