Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick East, Fine Gael)

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for allowing me to raise this most important matter for Limerick city. I raised this issue earlier on the Order of Business with the Taoiseach and I am delighted it is now being debated in the Dáil. It has been the subject of much media comment and the Dáil is the one area in which it should be discussed because we can effect legislative changes that will deal with this issue that has affected Limerick for a number of years. There was a fatality in recent days, which is very difficult for Mark Maloney's family, and we pass on our sympathy to them.

I pay tribute to the tremendous work done by the Garda Síochána in Limerick in dealing with gangland crime in these very difficult circumstances. Limerick is a fantastic city but additional resources must be provided by the Government together with new legislative measures to ensure that gangland crime is tackled. We must ensure that innocent people living in Limerick are safe and the image of the city is not diminished. A small minority of people is responsible for the problem in Limerick and we must deal with it head on.

In this regard I propose the following additional measures be implemented to assist the Garda Síochána and the other State agencies to properly tackle gangland crime in Limerick. Legislation must be enacted as a matter of urgency to first make gang membership a specific criminal offence. Second, measures must be put in place to enable the Garda Síochána to go to court and obtain exclusion orders preventing gangland criminals from entering certain areas of the city. Powers of permanent surveillance must also be introduced. When I raised this matter earlier with the Taoiseach I demanded that the criminal justice miscellaneous provisions Bill be introduced to the Dáil as a matter of urgency to enable these measures to be put in place. The response I got is that the Bill will be dealt with in this session. The Bill should be introduced early in this session, as early as possible because it is most important that we put these measures in place.

A mandatory minimum sentence of ten years for illegal possession of firearms should be imposed in the majority of cases by judges. That is not happening. Life sentence for murder must be a genuine deterrent. The minimum sentence to be served should be 25 years. I feel very strongly about this. If a person is caught in possession of an illegal firearm, he should not be granted bail. Many of the atrocities that happen in Limerick have occurred when people have been out on bail. This matter should be examined.

The 30 remaining gardaí who were promised under the John Fitzgerald report should be provided as a matter of urgency. We have 70 new gardaí and they are very welcome in Limerick, but the situation is such that the Garda needs the extra resources on the ground. When the John Fitzgerald report was originally published it proposed 100 gardaí for a smaller area than the regeneration area, but that has been overlooked. Seventy extra gardaí have come to the city of Limerick but it was suggested that 100 gardaí should specifically be allocated for the regeneration areas. The Government should honour that commitment and put at least those extra 30 gardaí in place.

The Criminal Assets Bureau, CAB, must be established in Limerick to tackle the criminals head on, especially in the area of drug dealing. The Government must immediately put extra measures in place to block the drugs coming in through ports and airports. When the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy Brian Lenihan, was Minister with responsibility for children he promised that extra judges would be put in place for the Children's Court. They need to be provided. Currently, in many cases children must commit four offences before they reach the Children's Court. They then have to wait six months for their case to be heard. Parental supervision orders must be used increasingly through the Children's Court as a means of holding parents accountable. A study carried out in 2007 revealed that out of a sample of 400 children attending the Children's Court, 86% of them were not attending school and 30% were involved in alcohol-related crimes.

I want the Minister to give a commitment tonight to the deployment of 30 extra gardaí in Limerick as a matter of urgency and, second, that the legislative measures that I proposed will be put in place as a matter of urgency and that the criminal justice miscellaneous provisions Bill will be brought before the Dáil in the coming weeks.

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