Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

I compliment the Minister on his recent appointment and wish him well in his portfolio. I also compliment Deputy Martin Mansergh on a well structured and well thought out speech. I agree with him on a number of issues, particularly in regard to retaining an unarmed police force, which has served us well since the foundation of the State. My only criticism is that Fianna Fáil has been in power for ten years so much of the advice Deputy Mansergh is now giving to the Minister should have been implemented in that period.

Unfortunately, the Minister in office for the past five years was prone to attacking criminals through the media and claiming not only that he had dealt with them but that he had seen the last sting of a dying wasp in 2005. Despite this claim, that year saw the largest number of gangland killings until then and the following year set another record. The last Minister did much talking but took little action. He was also anxious to condemn anybody who suggested he was not fully in control of criminality throughout the country. Unfortunately, he has left a legacy with which the current Minister, Deputy Brian Lenihan, will have to deal. I can predict with considerable certitude that this debate will mirror many debates in the next five years on this issue, namely, how we tackle crime.

At the beginning of his term in office, Tony Blair stated that we should be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime. We have not been successful in being tough on either. If one reflects on the litany of crime in recent days, it raises the spectre of what urban Ireland in particular has become. In Limerick, multiple shots were fired at four separate houses in the course of last night. In my constituency of Dublin Central, guns and explosive devices were discovered at Stanhope Green and not just the Garda but the Army had to be called to deal with them. Yesterday, in Clondalkin, eight kilos of cocaine worth €2 million was seized by gardaí. Only last week, a traffic garda was shot seriously in the stomach on Ossory Road, again in my constituency. The previous week, a drug dealer was shot in Finglas. Clearly, this microcosm of criminal activity in recent days demonstrates the seriousness of gangland activity in the city, particularly as gardaí themselves are not immune to the threat of violence and the use of weapons against them.

I recently received a letter from a number of local pharmacists, who stated they would no longer be in a position to prescribe methadone to the large number of addicts in my constituency because the HSE had unilaterally and without discussion reduced the return they would make on the prescription of drugs from approximately 18% to 8%, and that this was to reduce further to 7% in January. These pharmacists are brave people who are concerned largely with the security of the personnel working in their pharmacies, who prescribe and deliver methadone in circumstances that give rise to considerable difficulties. For the HSE to act unilaterally and make it difficult for the pharmacies to operate in a profitable manner is not good enough.

The problems of this generation are much more serious than those of the previous generation. When I became involved with dealing with prison reform in the 1970s, criminality had a totally different profile. Crime is far more serious today. It is more drug-related and gun-related and the profile of the prisoner in the prison system is totally different also. We have been very slow to respond to the changing profile of criminality in Ireland. This partly stems from the attitude of certain authorities, such as the former Minister who spoke of the last sting of a dying wasp. There was a sense of denial that a serious problem existed throughout the country — the same is true of a large number of senior gardaí.

This sense of denial is fuelled by the type of statistics available, which relate to reported crime although only certain crimes will be reported. Homicides will always be reported because there is always a body. Crimes against property, if serious, will be reported because an insurance issue must be dealt with. Drug seizures will always be reported because gardaí must report them. In the past five years, statistics have been trotted out to suggest headline crimes are down overall because these are the only areas where crimes must be reported. All the crimes in regard to anti-social behaviour, muggings, community-based crimes and lesser crimes of assault on persons are not reported because there is a perception they will not be dealt with and, therefore, there is no sense in reporting them. The five-year household survey is the only statistical evidence on which we can rely with regard to criminality.

What can we do? First, we need to face the reality that there is an escalating level of serious criminality in this country. We must target areas in a much more focused fashion. For example, there was virtually no cocaine in this country before 2000 but when it arrived, we were not prepared and no steps were taken to deal with it. It could have been targeted early and dealt with but that did not happen. Every few years, a new type of drug arrives on the scene but because we are not prepared to nip it in the bud at an early stage, or we do not have a task force that is directed towards examining the new threats, we are not able to eliminate them. We must be prepared.

We must use local authorities more than we have done. For example, I do not understand why local authority boundaries or Dáil constituency boundaries should not coincide with Garda division boundaries. When we begin to operate the community policing committees properly, we must have a geographical area that is coterminous with the local authority boundaries, which are the major administrative boundaries in the State. In addition, the community policing structures must be rapidly upgraded and given the resources and strength they require.

We have been very slow to produce legislation on trafficking in persons. In a joint operation with Ireland, the British authorities are now extending Operation Pentameter, which deals with the trafficking of women and children from Eastern Europe and the Far East to this country, largely for the purposes of sex exploitation and work exploitation. Irish legislation is not in place to deal with this.

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