Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

The sections regarding family counselling, trying to establish control, home liaison and teaching such children that life has a proper order are being implemented. For those who must unfortunately be removed from society, large amounts of resources are being made available, as the Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science, Deputy Brian Lenihan, said yesterday.

Deputy Rabbitte did not mention it, but I am sure that he, like me, has attended many public meetings where gardaí have said in front of several hundred people that there are cases where they do not have the powers to act regarding young people. The gardaí are continually pointing this out. They say that night after night, in hall after hall, to the citizens of this country, and they do so not because they want to dodge their responsibilities but because they believe they need tougher powers to deal with some of those gangs of hoodlums and thugs who simply want to manipulate communities. No one has any respect for them, and there are cases where they simply have to be removed from their communities, but we do not have the powers to do so. We have to have civil and curfew orders to deal with it; that is the point the gardaí are making. We can pass the legislation and then, one hopes, our gardaí will enforce it.

I agree with Deputy Rabbitte on this point. We passed laws in this House many years ago about not drinking in public or walking around with boxes of drink or ghetto-blasters. Many of those powers are ignored, but they exist for the gardaí to implement tonight if they so wish.

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