And, secondly, do we fully appreciate the impact of violence, not only on the victims, but on their loved ones and families?

The Tánaiste, Micheál Martin, touched upon the former when he spoke of “the perception of safety” and the sense that people are not as comfortable going about their business as they were years ago.

These anxieties were echoed in a Cork City Council debate, where representatives called for more gardaí and for enhanced jail terms.

When Mr Martin talks about “perception”, he will be aware that we are casting glances back to an apparent golden age when people left their front doors unlocked, children could play happily and unattended in the streets, and a full wallet on the ground would be handed over to the guards for it to be reclaimed by its grateful owner.

It’s somewhat doubtful that this Arcadia ever existed, or, if it did, not within living memory. It was back in the 1970s that the international father of modern criminology, Cambridge professor Leon Radzinowicz, coined the phrase ‘the dark shadow of crime’ to indicate the unreliability of official statistics.

Most incidents, he argued, went unreported.

Radzinowicz was pessimistic about the effectiveness of custodial sentences as a deterrent. Demand for places would always exceed supply. The outer limit of any prison sentence in concentrating minds to prevent reoffending was three years, Radzinowicz believed. After that, it was simply a matter of containment.

One of his solutions was to increase “conventional protections” (i.e., police numbers), because no changes could be implemented that would, “per se, reduce crime”.

His views were formed before the profound, and ever-present, use of drugs. The increasing visibility of this on city streets is fomenting strong opposition to any further relaxation of drug laws.

Many will think that the country would be mad to introduce changes without substantial additional and well-trained resources being in place. The lack of a costed plan is the fundamental flaw in the case made by many liberals and health experts.

The same weakness applies to those who want to see more prison places.

During his short maternity leave cover as minister of justice, Simon Harris spoke of four new capital prison projects to create space for an additional 620 inmates.

Justice Minister Helen McEntee raised the number to 670 in the spring, to scepticism from the Prison Officers’ Association.

In the same speech, she acknowledged that 80% of inmates have addiction issues, with trafficking rife in the country’s jails.

It is but a matter of time before we may be forced to contemplate what Britain is doing, to great public dissatisfaction, with the early release of certain categories of prisoner.

And that brings us to an under-debated aspect of what is described as the modern crime wave.

Writing on ScienceDirect.com, researchers Elizabeth Cook and Sally McManus conclude that it is not only the million or so victims of violence in England and Wales who suffer severe post-traumatic stress disorder, self-harm, and suicidality.

Their nearest and dearest also are twice as likely as the rest of the population to experience fear, anxiety, and depression.

Such findings, another dark shadow of crime, are unlikely to be wildly different in the Republic.

They are consequences that need to be more widely identified and understood.

Gaza polio vaccine a remarkable undertaking

With the tide of depressingly bad news from Gaza continuing unabated, we must take every opportunity to celebrate achievement which saves lives rather than destroys them.

Many cheers then for the conclusion of the first phase of an enormous polio vaccination campaign which encourages medical teams to believe they will hit their target of inoculating 640,000 children under the age of 10. This is an astounding achievement carried out under all the challenges of wartime. For it to be fully successful, booster vaccinations must be administered in a few weeks.

The dosed group — the vaccine is delivered orally — comprises some 80% of those that health authorities are hoping to inoculate. A target of 90% must be reached to stop the spread of the contagious virus which was found in waste water in Gaza this summer. Last month, a one-year-old boy was confirmed as the first polio case in the enclave for a quarter of a century.

Part of the programme has been carried out by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA); the UN agency accused by Israel of employing some relief workers who were complicit in the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7. Hamas and the Israeli military agreed to observe humanitarian pauses in the fighting and have undertaken to ensure the same for the second stage of the process.

The temporary cessation was broken when Israel attacked a former school which it said had become a haven for militants including some, it said, who worked for UNRWA. Eighteen Gazans were killed including, said the organisation, six of its employees, the most to die in a single strike since war began.

The latest controversy arises shortly before the International Criminal Court (ICC) is expected to decide whether to grant the application of its prosecutor, Karim Khan, to issue arrest warrants for the leaders of Hamas and Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Yoav Gallant.

Khan made his request at the beginning of May. It was welcomed by Sinn Féin but government policy is to acknowledge the independence of the ICC while at the same time moving towards official recognition of the state of Palestine.

The prosecutor’s office may commence an investigation on its own initiative if it has grounds to believe one or more of four international crimes has been committed — war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and the crime of aggression.

Some countries — the US, Germany, Britain — believe Khan’s request is premature. Whether the ICC accepts that he has acted hastily will be clarified in the imminent announcement which may come next week.

Should it support the warrants, it would prevent Mr Netanyahu or Mr Gallant travelling to the jurisdiction of any ICC member which would be obligated to arrest them upon entry and hand them over to the Hague. This is, of course, precisely what didn’t happen when Vladimir Putin, against whom an arrest warrant was issued in March 2023, visited Mongolia for a red carpet reception last week.

For that reason, if no other, we may find that the ICC put this decision on the long finger rather than risk another embarrassment to its standing and reputation.