Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I do not have the overall figure, but witness protection is an extremely difficult issue, as the Deputy knows, because he has raised it here. I have raised it again with the commissioner. Although he is not convinced, he has enhanced the system. The difficulty is that, even when badly injured, criminals will not participate in normal surveillance and intelligence gathering. This is the case even when the individuals are known to the Garda. As we have seen recently, even seriously injured individuals who know who tried to kill them will not co-operate. That is a serious issue for the Garda which has informed me and the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy Brian Lenihan, that it has the legal powers but cannot force people to do so, that it can only continue its legal surveillance intelligence activity and question people to try to get this information. This is a serious problem for gardaí; they know the gangs, on which they have good intelligence, but where there are crimes between gangs, their modus operandi is not to speak. Gardaí freely tell us that is a difficulty for them. In other areas they do not have that problem. They also say this problem of not co-operating is bigger in Dublin than elsewhere. In other parts of the country they can break down these issues but in the greater Dublin area it is a difficulty, even with the intelligence gathered under Operation Anvil. Providing the number of gardaí and detectives from the specialised unit involved in sitting in the middle and trying to stop some of the gangs from engaging in criminal acts against each other is very costly.

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