Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As an Oireachtas Member who votes for these budgets, I am one of those who wants to see more gardaí on the streets. We all want to see this. I am a great believer that technology is the way to leverage the resources we have. I encourage Mr. Harris to keep spending in this direction.

People often quote the Commissioner back to him. When he was first appointed, he stated that crime is not like rain and does not fall equally everywhere. Unfortunately, the community I represent, which incudes Ballymun, Finglas, Glasnevin and Santry, has disproportionate levels of crime. I was involved with Dublin City Council on the Ballymun - A Brighter Future report by Andrew Montague. That report refers to the level of policing in our community and the level of crime. For an area with such a high murder rate, we have one of the lowest rates of policing in the country. The average rate is 2.8 gardaí per 1,000 population. Our rate is 2.3 gardaí per 1,000 population. If we discount from the district the 45 gardaí in Dublin Airport because they are not accessible in a community sense, we drop down to 2.1 gardaí per 1,000 population. Has the Commissioner done work with the Pobal deprivation index on hotspots of crime and how resources are allocated? It seems unbelievable that an area with such high murder and crime rates would be at the lower end of policing resources.