Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

The most significant aspect of the Estimate for the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform for 2006 is the confirmation that the Government has formally abandoned the commitment to increase Garda numbers by 2,000 within the lifetime of the Government. This is particularly bad news for members of the public, against the background of the current wave of gangland killings and the ongoing problems of crime, vandalism and anti-social behaviour that blight many communities. The commitment to increase the membership of the force to 14,000 was made as far back as 2002 by the Progressive Democrats and Fianna Fáil in their separate manifestos and jointly in their Government manifesto. Its implementation date has been pushed back further each year. It is clear that the increase of only 11% in the allocation for Garda salaries, wages and allowances will allow for only a small overall increase in Garda numbers during the year. This is especially so if, as the Government has promised, significant resources are to be devoted to breaking up the criminal gangs and Operation Anvil is to be continued which is totally dependent on overtime.

I welcome the allocation for the office of the Garda ombudsman. I hope this will ensure the office will at last be up and running, at least next year, four years after it had been promised by the previous Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. It is disappointing there has been only a 3% increase in the allocation for services for victims of crime. The organisation dealing with the victims of crime has fallen apart and there is no separate organisation. Surely, given the resources available to the Government, something more could have been done rather than this paltry increase.

There is a cut of €23 million in the capital allocation for prisons which would suggest that the planned Thornton Hall prison project may well be in doubt, despite the bullish statement by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform today that everything was going ahead according to schedule. Fingal County Council has declared it a conservation area and is examining it with a view to putting a conservation order on it. The area is rich in archaeological remains and so on. Perhaps there is something in the Estimates that the Minister is not telling us. The entire prison budget is down by 3% and the Courts Service budget is down by 5%. It appears that has put paid to any new spending on a central courts system that had been planned by the Minister last year and was to be his great headline project for the coming year.

What we have got from the Minister has been a great flamboyant flourish. He is strong on perception but weak on delivery. The key areas that affect the qualify of life have been neglected, the failure to provide the extra gardaí that had been promised and the failure to do anything about gangland killings. This time last year he said he had done the devil and all and the matter was all but dealt with and yet there has been three times the number of gangland killings during the past 12 months as in the previous 12 months and there is no sign of them abating.

The issue of anti-social behaviour has not been addressed, neither has the problem of drugs. Other than trying to do something about sniffer dogs and mandatory drug searches in prison, the Minister has no proposals to deal with the huge spread of drugs throughout the community. He is really not at the races in providing the services required. While money is being spent on the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, the Minister is a little like his colleague, the Tánaiste, who has responsibility for the Department of Health and Children where much money is swallowed up with very little to show for it.

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