Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

If the law is not enforced it is an academic topic for debate. The people who visit me every week are not interested in a lecture about existing laws or those in prospect, or the speeches of the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. They are interested in what happens on a Saturday night when they are under siege from youths congregating outside who threaten them in their own homes, when their cars and property are being damaged and when they do not know whether the local school can be left vacant during summer recess because of the extent of damage to schools and public property.

Community policing does not obtain in most urban areas. As soon as the community police officer establishes a rapport with the local community he or she is transferred elsewhere. At the first sign of crisis the first person to be raided is the community police officer. There are no active community patrols in many of the neighbourhoods at issue. Resort to the Garda Síochána does not work because the Garda does not respond effectively. People plead for help in their homes but cannot get it from the local authority or the Garda.

We must address the question of community policing with people indigenous to the community who know the troublesome factions. We need to develop community sanctions and make these factions clean up the mess they create. We must give people who live in these circumstances some relief. It is pointless for the Taoiseach to tell me he has known about this for 28 years. This did not happen 28 years ago on the scale on which it happens everywhere now.

See this speech in context