Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

The key promise made by the Government was that people would feel safer in their homes and on the streets, a record on which the Government would be judged. Everybody stands for that kind of society. The latest figures published for headline crime, however, suggest a serious situation.

The reality is that crime is up and detection is down. Homicides are up from 98 in 2004 to 155 in 2005. Every week there are more than 1,000 thefts, amounting to 56,000 last year. In every one of the ten headline categories of crime the detection rate in 2005 was lower than in 2000 where similar figures are available. That means there is a lower detection rate of homicides, assaults, sexual offences, thefts, burglaries and robberies. There are ten categories within which to measure the Government's performance, amounting to ten failures.

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