A Dublin councillor has claimed some people in her area are carrying knives with them because 'they fear attack'.
Sinn Féin Councillor Janice Boylan represents the north inner-city.
She was speaking amid an increase in knife crime in the capital in recent weeks, and the death of a teenager.
She has brought in a motion calling on the Lord Mayor Hazel Chu to invite the Garda Commissioner Drew Harris, Justice Minister Helen McEntee and other stakeholders to come up with 'workable solutions' to tackle the rise in knife crime.
Councillor Boylan told Lunchtime Live things needs to change.
"We wanted to get these people …. to come up with ways that we can work at getting this stamped out.
"It has risen, it's making people very afraid, it's making people very nervous and it's definitely something that we need to address before it escalates further."
She said there were four stabbing incidents in an eight day period in the north inner-city.
"They're the ones that obviously were reported in the media, and there is obviously cases where youths are getting involved and bringing knives out with them and getting involved in activities that they obviously shouldn't be getting involved in".
"They're not being fully reported", she said.
"It's something that's been happening a long, long time and it's something that really needs to be addressed seriously - especially in light of somebody loosing their life".
She said the solution has to be a wider one, to help people in those areas feel safe.
"I know some people are nervous, and they're carrying knives around with them because they fear attack, they fear getting robbed.
"But that can't be the case - we cannot have members of society carrying weapons that can kill and seriously maim around with them just because they feel unsafe.
"It's up to us as a society to make the area safer for all of these people, so that's where the resources come in".
And she said this should be coupled with education that "it's not OK to carry knives, that it's absolutely not OK to enter into an argument with anybody and produce a knife".
"It's two-pronged: it needs to be education and it needs to be fully resourced, where we have the Garda on the ground and they're able to tackle any altercation that they come across".
