Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour)
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I thank everyone for being here. At the outset, I want to voice my own confidence in the work that the Garda does and my support for An Garda Síochána. Its members put their bodies and lives on the line for our safety. It is genuinely appreciated.

There are three main topics that I want to talk about. One is the number of resignations from the force that we have and how that feeds into the issue of morale. I also want to talk about the number of charges that are being brought for possession of drugs for personal use and about community gardaí.

On community gardaí, there is a feeling, perception or otherwise that the community Garda service is being squeezed or that the numbers are not being prioritised and that the units exist but the people operating within those units are lesser. I can talk about my own constituency but I do not necessarily think it is fair to do so. I want to get the Commissioner's sense of how important he feels the community Garda service is. In my own experience, and I think most people here would agree with me, the community Garda service actually prevents more crime than any other section of An Garda Síochána. Community gardaí understand young people, communities, school life and can actually build up relationships. We should be having a conversation about getting more numbers into that section, not a debate over whether or not there should be a reduction.

On the number of charges being brought for possession of drugs for personal use, I want to get the Commissioner's response to the figures. In 2017, 3,692 criminal charges were brought for possession of drugs for personal use. That is not for supply or dealing in drugs, but for personal use. These were people who were found with drugs on them for their own personal use. So far this year, 6,396 charges have been brought. Almost 6,400 individual charges have been brought for possession of illegal substances for personal use. Many of these people will have addictions. Does the Commissioner not feel that it is an utter waste of Garda time to charge people for possessing something that they are addicted to? They are not always addicted, but in a huge number of cases they are. We have talked about the city centre and trying to combat the issues we see there around addiction. When it came to the discussions on injecting facility, there were planning objections to it. It is an injecting facility like the facilities that are in 80 cities across Europe, which have helped tackle overdoes and death and have taken open injecting away from the visual of people in the city centre and into a medically supervised facility. Garda representatives have never been full-throated in their support for such a facility. They have always been a little bit, I might say, negative towards it, and say it will be challenging. They never really speak to how it could effectively deal with the issues of open injecting that we see in the city centre.

The last set of figures I want to talk about relate to resignations from the force. In 2013, there were 26 resignations from An Garda Síochána. In 2018, that number was 77. Up to this month, we understand that the number is 116. Compared to 2018 and 2013, we have 114. I got the figure of 114 from a parliamentary question. We understand that the number is 116 now. The Commissioner has to accept that there is an issue there if we have that number of resignations from An Garda Síochána happening, and that it is a morale issue. Anecdotally, people tell me they would not join the force now.

I know the Commissioner's time is short. I ask him to respond to the points on community gardaí, charges for possession of drugs for personal use and the injecting facility in terms of tackling drugs, and the number of resignations.