Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I will go back to the question I asked about the allocation of resources. I remember meeting an assistant commissioner 25 years ago and being told that divisions would not give up resources and they have what they hold, which means there is a real difficulty for areas that are growing in population. I have looked at policing plan after policing plan and it is like cut and paste or copy and paste. Meath has the lowest ratio of gardaí to population, followed by Kildare. Deputy McAuliffe drew attention to the very high levels of crime in a particular division.

There is a difficulty. It appears that population does not play that big a part. I understand that is only one part of how resources are deployed, that where risks are has to be looked at, and there are other demands, such as cybercrime, which concern all of Ireland rather than one particular area. The Covid pandemic meant there was a loss of an opportunity. That is where the buoyancy is to build up areas that are under-resourced. These areas are growing in population but are not getting the resources to go along with that growth. It is very difficult to see where there is an actual plan that counts things such as population and, as Deputy McAuliffe said, that counts crime. I just cannot make head nor tail of how the resources are allocated.