David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses very much. This is very interesting. Earlier, they spoke about the escalation from very small stuff to people perhaps getting injured or killed. I draw attention to the youth justice strategy, which I put together when I was in the Department of Justice. It is up and running, and I want to make the witnesses aware that it is there specifically to stop young people from becoming involved in crime initially.

I will also ask about the retail forum. Some of the witnesses might be members of that. Has this issue come up at all at the retail forum? Is it possible for it to come up at that forum? I note that there is a national retail crime strategy group in the UK. Is there anything like that here? Should we have such a group? Mr. Jennings mentioned the sharing of information. There does not seem to be a sharing of information and data between the police, business and public in the UK, which he suggested is happening in Belfast. We might be able to do something on that. I listened when Mr. Jennings talked about that. It is very important.

Professor Emmeline Taylor of the University of London has come up with a term, SWIPERS, or seemingly well-intentioned patrons who engage in routine shoplifting. I am not sure whether the representatives have come across that. They probably have. We have focused on the dramatic up to now, for example, the youngster who comes in, and the grabbing, violence and aggression. To what extent is the sneaky shoplifter, who is seemingly well intentioned, an issue? This is somebody who comes in, takes stuff, puts it into a bag and walks out quietly or, as I said, goes to the scanning machine to scan carrots instead of avocados, which was given as an example. I ask for comment on that as well.

For Mr. Dunne and Mr. O'Driscoll, a local community safety partnership has been established in the inner city, instead of joint policing committees, JPCs. These partnerships are meant to work with business, education, the voluntary sector, the HSE, Tusla, the Garda, local authorities and councillors. There have been three pilots, one of which is in the inner city. Have Mr. Dunne or Mr. O'Driscoll any interaction with that? Do they know about it? I ask them to talk to that.

I know I am covering a lot of matters. If that €1.6 billion was impacted on, or reduced in any way, would it mean cheaper goods for other customers? Could that saving be passed on? I assume shoplifting is an extra cost that has to be built in in order to keep businesses profitable but if we could in some way impact on that, would it mean prices could come down?

On the Garda Reserve, we talk about people with yellow jackets going around and being visible. If we had the Garda Reserve up and running, we would have more yellow jackets on the streets. People might want to do that.

In 2015, a symposium, or Retail Retreat, was held by Retail Excellence Ireland, REI, on retail crime in Ireland. At that time, the estimated cost of retail crime was €1.62 billion. Some 98% of retailers saw the judicial system as ineffective and 81% of them called for a significant increase in Garda numbers. However, they also said that employee theft was quite high. I ask for comment on that. It was put at 42.7% of losses, which seems very high. Shoplifting was at 35%, while administrative error was 15%, vendors were 3.7% and unknown reasons were 3.9% of losses. I talked to the manager of a large store recently, who told me employee theft is an issue for him. I said I would bring it up to see whether it is something the witnesses came across in their experience. Will they comment on it?

The Department of Justice has an initiative, the joint agency response to crime, JARC, where the Garda, Prison Service and Probation Service come together to sit on somebody who is a known, prolific criminal. The Department also put together the youth joint agency response to crime, YJARC, which, again, sits on a young person who is known to be carrying out a lot of crimes. The various agencies really sit on this person. It seems to have been effective in Cork and Dublin, where it was put in as a pilot project.

There are a whole load of questions there. I am sorry for taking so long.