More gardaí are needed on the beat to deal with violence caused by drugs and drink, Judge Keenan Johnson has told Tullamore Circuit Court.
He was speaking after hearing how a Co Offaly man stabbed another man in the neck with a carving knife on 15 January last year in Birr.
Barry Hehir, 22, formerly of Birr and with an address at Lynally Grove, Mucklagh, has been in custody since last March when he pleaded guilty to assaulting Darragh Daly, causing him serious harm.
The court was told that Hehir's eyes were bulging out of his head when he went into the kitchen of his mother's house in the early hours of the morning to get a knife.
He had been fighting with the victim earlier and was very intoxicated, the court was told.
The victim had to undergo emergency surgery in Tullamore Hospital because of damage to blood vessels caused by a two centimetre laceration on his neck.
Judge Johnson described the offence as depressingly serious but so prevalent that a similar one had been before him in Longford the previous week.
He said Ireland needed to have a serious conversation about drink and drugs because such incidents did not happen on the continent and in this country young people's lives were being ruined.
He called on politicians to sit up and listen to what was happening and come up with initiatives to deal with the havoc caused by drink and drugs.
He remanded Hehir in custody to 20 November next for sentence and ordered probation, psychological and psychiatric reports.
