Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I came up here to talk about security but Senator Ruane has sent me off on another track. She is 100% correct. We have let communities down in areas. I lived in Limerick for a number of years and there were two estates whose residents were constantly referred to as troublemakers, scumbags and so on. In Galway city, there were similar estates and there are areas in Dublin that are similarly regarded as tough places to grow up in. That is no excuse. Some people who come out of tough areas excel. However, if we are honest about it, we are living in a world where your address matters and it is extremely difficult for some people to break out. I spent 23 years of my life teaching and some of the kids I taught were excellent, top-quality kids but found it difficult to get work because of their address. I remember two girls I taught in Limerick studying in the college at 9.30 p.m. I asked them why they were there and they said they had nowhere else to study. They could not bring their books home because they would be ridiculed by those living around them. I asked them what their ambition was and they said it was to get as far away from that goddamn city as they could.

We can call for the heads of the Garda Commissioner and the Minister but, from my perspective, that is just absolute nonsense. What is that going to solve? It is great politics for outside and it is lovely for the media to report that so-and-so called for the Commissioner's head but the truth is that we have let communities down and we have let the security services down as well. We have run them into the ground. Their pension schemes are rubbish and their terms and conditions are becoming more and more rubbish. It is becoming a career that people no longer want any part of. Whatever happened to the days when one garda could walk down a street and people would behave themselves? I remember being in Salthill one night when a row broke out in a dance hall and one garda standing in the middle of the park in Salthill had the two factions separated, one to either side, and nobody moved. That was when we had respect for gardaí. However, you cannot get respect for gardaí if you do not have respect for the citizens they are policing. I want us to get away from this nonsense about firing Ministers or firing the Commissioner. They are doing their jobs just like the rest of us. Maybe we should go back 25 or 30 years and start to resource these areas and the police force correctly.