Teaching children to have no fear of the consequences of their actions is a dangerous thing to do.

Consequences are a vital element of the human condition — without them, some would still choose to do the right thing, but many others wouldn’t. As with training a pet, what happens directly after a particular behaviour will make that behaviour more or less likely to happen again.

The scenes in Ballybrack, south Dublin, last week were demoralising, but sadly now all too familiar. Enraged groups, taking to the streets, protesting against plans for yet more “unvetted military-aged males” (the overt tagline of the hour) to be housed in the area, gardaí abused and harangued, senseless chants, misinformed soap-boxing, and erroneously brandished Tricolours. Windows smashed, stones and other missiles thrown.

And eggs — always with the eggs.

Considering how many of these right-wing zealots regularly bring the rising cost of living into their arguments, they’re very free and easy with the eggs. When they shout “Ireland is full”, they must mean of eggs.

But what astonished most was the kids, who would have been better off at home in front of a boiled egg and soldiers, rather than on the streets with these self-proclaimed freedom fighters.

Not just teens, but also small, primary school-aged children without so much as a low-level fear of the gardaí. One of the most oft-heard comments when groups of young people cause trouble, is “sure they know nothing will happen” and how their attitude to authority ranges from indifference to contempt. They know there will be no consequences, and they didn’t lick this off the stones... before they threw them.

Some consequences result in instinctive behavioural changes: most of us won’t jump off a roof to see if we can fly more than once (bar my friend Steve, and we know he’ll do it again), or touch a hot iron twice, but others need to be imposed on us. Learning to respect, and trust, authority, and that there can be consequences for failing to do so, is an integral part of any functioning democratic society.

Admittedly the trust part can be broken through no fault of our own, but the respect side of it starts young, and at home.

This may all sound like stating the obvious, but increasingly we are seeing what happens when young people are enabled to live without any fear of consequence.

Talk of rudderless families abounds, and the media (social and mainstream) will often trot out accusations of intergenerational unemployment and a culture of worklessness, but not only is this unfair, in reality it is mostly untrue. A convenient and lazy insult to throw at people, but also arguably no different to the misinformation spread among the groups at these protests, and an angle that serves no purpose but to divide further.​

We know these groups aren’t made up entirely, or even mostly, of local people, nor do they speak for the majority of them. There is a relatively small number of agitators; malcontent provocateurs who flock to any opportunity of rabble rousing like seagulls to Sunday morning street vomit, whipping up hatred and paranoia where there was none.

On a much bigger, global scale, it’s clear that in 2023, a basement full of computers and a half-decent wifi connection is as powerful as any military base, its light-deprived workforce akin to soldiers. One of the most important things Putin did to disable Prigozhin’s Wagner troops was to attack the “troll factories”. Disabling 3G is the new disarmament, it seems.

Similarly, here too, these protests are co-ordinated via Facebook group pages and online forums, where these cut-price demagogues create echo chambers rife with misinformation, scaremongering and vitriol.

Better communication from Government and councils would, of course, help enormously. Ridge Hall, the building at the centre of the protests in Ballybrack, is apparently being renovated for Ukrainian refugees, but that’s not what the people present believed — or the adults at least; we have to wonder what the young children thought they were entitled to be so angry and aggressive about.

With parenting, there is a glut of information about the importance of good nutrition, exercise and education — you’ll find stands collapsing under the weight of pamphlets on this stuff in health and community centres. But we have a way to go on the emotional side of rearing children. A lack of respect for authority isn’t a new concept, but it does seem to be gaining momentum.

Parents slagging off the guards, teachers, or even the old man next door, might seem trivial, but without balance, it has a cumulative effect, and demonstrates that respect isn’t important.

It might not always be as serious as throwing a brick through a window, but raising our young people to understand that there are consequences to every action and behaviour, is as important as making sure they sleep at night. It’s fundamental to building accountability, personal responsibility, compassion and a sense of civic pride; principles one would hope everyone wants.

And can we please agree to keep the eggs for omelettes?