Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

I join the Minister in congratulating the Garda on recent apparent successes, especially the Celbridge operation. This demonstrates the resources and degree of patience required for such operations.

Given the very low level of detection and conviction that the tabular response shows, are there plans to make internal changes within the Garda Síochána to target the gangster leaders? I am always interested to hear, within hours of a gun murder, one newspaper crime correspondent or another outlining on a radio programme details on those involved, including their seed, breed, generation and background, in addition to information we all should have known and the suspects' previous records. This implies that the information is well known to the Garda and that, in most cases, comes from it in the first instance. If the Garda has such information, is it not possible to reorganise the force such that there could be more interceptions like the one that took place in Celbridge?

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