Tom Hayes (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)

The most obvious of these is to ensure the law is upheld and order prevails. People in a locality feel safer when there is a garda stationed in their area. They are pleased to see their local gardaí patrolling the area. They know the physical presence of a garda in an area is a crime deterrent. This is of particular importance to the elderly who often feel especially vulnerable, particularly if they live alone. One constituent phoned me in a state of some distress last year because his local Garda sergeant had retired and had not been replaced. There is a direct correlation between the loss of that Garda post and the steep rise in anti-social behaviour in the small town. Those in the locality feel very let down by Government. They believe that rural Ireland has once again been forgotten and that it does not matter if their area is subject to vandalism, drug abuse, thefts, burglaries and so forth because this level of crime does not merit the appointment of a garda. Even though no Government in the history of the State has ever had so much money flooding the Exchequer, no allocation was made to provide a garda for this small town. Its people were, and still are, expected to put up with anti-social behaviour and petty crime and to just get used to it. That is life in rural Ireland under this Government.

Clonmel is a sizeable urban area with many problems, not least among them anti-social behaviour, thefts and burglaries, assaults and drug offences. In nine years, Clonmel's garda numbers have increased by four. This increase is not all it seems, given that Fethard which is part of Clonmel's Garda district lost a garda during this period. Another example of under-resourcing is that in my entire constituency just three gardaí are dedicated to tackling drugs crime. It is generally acknowledged that only 10% of drugs coming into the country are detected. If we want that statistic to increase, we must increase the number of gardaí that are dedicated to this area. The number of gardaí must be increased if we are to tackle crime, particularly in regard to drugs.

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