Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

The Deputy asked a number of questions, which I will answer in two ways. He mentioned gangland killings and referred to the need for local development, social exclusion programmes, educational programmes for the disadvantaged, early intervention schemes to target young people at risk and the need to work with organisations in the statutory and voluntary sectors such as Barnardos and others. The State resources these organisations to help them to look after people across the system who are dysfunctional at an early age and to provide them with the necessary assistance for their rehabilitation. Community development support programmes are funded by enormous amounts of taxpayers' money, taxpayers being the people to whom the Deputy referred. In education alone this year, more than €50 million has been allocated to provide for the educationally disadvantaged and more than €20 million has been allocated to community development programmes. Such programmes are targeted mainly at people who, as the Deputy rightly said, constitute a small number of families in a small number of areas who, either through no fault of their own or through circumstances of being influenced by others, require that kind of assistance. Professional people ranging from clinical psychologists to teachers to individuals working with people under stress work hard in many areas.

Unfortunately, my experience is that such programmes do not cover the category of people who wish to be involved in gangland attacks. They are normally groups who believe there is a way other than the normal route to make it rich. They are normally not dysfunctional but clever, smart and not drug takers or abusers of alcohol. They are willing to operate whatever system is necessary or to undertake themselves or through others whatever violence is necessary to make unlawful gains. Unfortunately, we have seen the results of some of those events. We have not seen too many gangland killings this year. The gangland killing over the weekend was only the second, although there have been murders in other areas.

With the large number of gardaí in this country compared with police forces operating in other countries of our size, the Garda has specialist forces in these areas which are well resourced and use the modern technology available to try to break these gangs. Deputy Joe Higgins is aware of the feud in the area in question and that some of the people involved, who come from different areas, are well known, have been involved for a long time and are experienced in criminal activities in this city. This is an operational matter for the Garda which is using considerable resources to deal with these issues.

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