Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

On national security and the question about people who are brought to the attention of the security forces because of national or international liaison with groups such as those I referred to earlier, there are not many such persons in the country. Some of them are in or out of the country and some of them have contacts with the country. The Garda is continually involved in monitoring ongoing subversion by, thankfully, a limited number of groups and, of course, there are criminal groups. I do not have a breakdown — this is a matter for the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform — but the Garda is monitoring criminal gangs, subversives and a small number of people who are or may be associated with international terrorism all the time. I do not have any details on the make up of the 10,000 or 20,000 figure.

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