Gerard Murphy (Cork North West, Fine Gael)

If legislation and regulation could solve our crime problems we would soon have a crime-free society. The Minister constantly boasts about the amount of legislation he has introduced. Although much of it is welcome and may assist the Garda in combating serious crime, so far this does not seem to be the case. Serious crime is increasing, detection rates have decreased and most ordinary, hard-working citizens despair of the Government's ability to do its job. The Minister speaks much about his ability to solve the problem, confront vested interests and get the job done. As well as introducing a raft of legislation, he tries to manage a propaganda campaign depicting himself as the law and order man of the century. Since he and the Minister, Deputy O'Donoghue, are the only two people to have held the Ministry for Justice, Equality and Law Reform in this relatively young century, there may be hope for us as the century moves on.

For some years there has been a propaganda game and an effort to give the impression of progress despite the deteriorating situation. While I do not suggest that the propaganda campaign resembles that of another regime in the 1930s or 1940s, I worry that sometimes extreme right wing talk and curtailment of civil rights and liberties might have tones of similar right wing regimes of that period. Thankfully these regimes did not last and I am equally confident that the regime of the Ministers, Deputies O'Donoghue and McDowell, will soon end.

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