Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

In fairness to Deputies who support the Garda, it is wrong to suggest that the Garda is not having many successes in this area. It is. As we all will be aware, there are many situations which never come into the public domain by reason of the work being done in preventing serious crimes. Hundreds, not tens, of people from that area who have been involved in crime are behind bars since Operation Anvil began. Hundreds of firearms were taken out of the equation as a result of the work of the Garda Síochána. Murder detection rates in the mid-west region compare very favourably to anywhere else. This is despite the fact that we know there is a culture among a small group of people in the area who have a propensity to violence, hatred and gangland activity. In fairness to the people of Limerick who are at the front line, there is a recognition of the increased visibility of gardaí and the effectiveness of the work of the officers there who conduct their efforts against these people. This in no way suggests that anyone is complacent and acknowledges that any incident where a fatality occurs is unacceptable.

A great deal of work is being done as a result of effective professional policing in the emergency response unit and the special resource units available for the region, the excellence of the people who deal with this on an ongoing basis and the number of convictions, perhaps not specifically with regard to section 72 but with regard to criminal offences, successfully prosecuted in the courts and people put behind bars. This continues to happen and I assure the House the Commissioner is determined with regard to this matter and he made the point that this type of activity was one of his priority issues on becoming Garda Commissioner. He has an excellent record in this area.

We have co-ordination between the emergency response unit, regional units, the national centre for criminal investigation and the CAB, in which the Commissioner had experience in the past and has expertise, and the machinery of the law is being brought to bear in every possible way to try to deal with this situation. The House should be assured that in standing here none of us is defeatist about this issue. All of us recognise the threat to our way of life that this activity represents. All of us recognise that this is a priority area for the provision of resources and it will continue to be regardless of the economic situation because we must deal with it. Behind it all is the pernicious drugs industry and trade and every citizen must recognise that anyone involved either as a user, supplier or trafficker contributes to this culture with which we must contend and defeat.

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