Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I do not want to repeat all the figures again, but we will have an additional 3,500 gardaí on the streets. Our population has increased. The Minister took action to increase Garda numbers to what they are today. That took an enormous effort. Anyone familiar with the training programme and the top class new facilities at Templemore will be aware of the effort to do that. We will reach the figure of 14,000. We got rid of the revolving door because there are 1,900 extra places, due to the fact that we have resourced the Prison Service and the Garda in terms of capital and resources, including overtime which, perhaps, is not always the best means but it is necessary to have the individual programmes. We have managed to cut crime in many places. I do not wish to get into the argument with Deputy Rabbitte on the number of homicides for Dublin. I want to give the number of homicides for the country which in 1993 was 53 and in 2005 was 58 with a population of a difference of 600,000. That is 53 and 58 too many. I am not happy with those numbers.

While the figures from the provisional headline crime statistics for last year show an increase of 2.7% compared to 2004, the level of headline crime in 2005 is lower than for 2003 by 1.6%. Even with an increase in population there is very little difference. The figures show that manslaughter is down 50% and aggravated sexual assault is down 43%. Those are substantial reductions. It is fair to examine the numbers per 1,000 of population. Going back to 1995, the figures show a reduction — I wish it was far more — from 29 crimes per 1,000, to 24.6 crimes per 1,000.

There are problems of lawlessness in some areas. The Public Order Act was successfully implemented on St. Patrick's Day. This time last year I was here dealing with the difficulties that arose on St. Patrick's Day. I congratulate the Garda and the Minister on the fact that there were very few difficulties on St. Patrick's Day this year. One of the reasons for that——

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