Mr. Vincent Jennings:

The 30,000 number is obviously a low figure but it comes about as a result of people's frustration. Mr. O'Driscoll is not going to give his date of birth on each occasion that somebody comes in to take a statement. He has not got the time. That whole process is required to be much quicker. It was suggested by Deputy Stanton there would be night courts or courts the following day. That level of quick justice is a much better thing. If we could see that things worked in that regard it would be the case that we would have much more faith in it rather than the whole idea of sending somebody down to the courts for it to be adjourned, having to go through that three times and then finally find the prosecuting garda is not there that day. The person walks off scot-free and he or she is back in the shop before we get back. This is where we need to have faith in the system.

I would love to say that Operation Táirge is going to work. Definitely on the organised criminal end of things it seems to meet all the objectives but that is only one part of our problem. The other problem is the opportunistic thief and the young thief. There is nothing in Operation Táirge that actually is going to deal with those people. Those people are really causing mayhem for the convenience sector. The Deputy knows all about e-scooters and mopeds going around Limerick. It is happening everywhere. Those gangs are really lawless beyond belief. They need to be tackled. I believe Táirge is a result of a very strong collaborative effort with retailers, with An Garda Síochána, and with the Department of Justice. It has every ability to actually work but this still leaves the other elements.