Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)

Those people were very sophisticated when they did that. I welcome the Bill because Fine Gael has looked for these measures for a long time. Our Bill forward was voted down. I am glad that the Government has brought this legislation forward. A few weeks ago I read that the Human Rights Commission was not happy with the first draft of the Bill but saw in one of yesterday's newspapers that it welcomed it in principle, with some minor reservations.

I welcome the provision that a garda must go before a judge to get permission to put surveillance on a person's home. The gardaí must always be answerable to somebody and somebody else must make that decision. If a garda does this without the permission of a judge what sanctions does he or she face? I would appreciate if the Minister could answer that question when he concludes this Stage. We must ensure that this does not happen.

Some private investigators use very sophisticated equipment to spy on people and get information. How does the law cover them or will it cover them? What sanctions do they face if they break the law because they will not get permission from a judge?

I welcome this legislation because the members of the Garda Síochána have held the most difficult job in this country since the foundation of the State. They do it well and put their lives at risk. I recently attended the funeral of a fine young man in Swinford, which is in my county, who was serving the State well. This is a great loss to his family. I would like that people who attack gardaí never see the light of day again. We need some legislation to deal with that problem. I hope legislation will come before this House that will protect anybody, whether the Garda Síochána, medical workers, ambulance drivers, who works on behalf of the State and is attacked by thugs at any hour of the night when doing his or her civic duty. The legislation covering the killing or injuring of a garda is not enough. I believe in law and order and that people who attack the gardaí must if convicted spend a long time in jail. I would go even further but my party would not share my view on what should happen to some of these criminals.

The gardaí have a very difficult job. They are dealing with sophisticated criminals who have lots of money to hire professional people including legal specialists and accountants. They have the resources, the money and the manpower. In some cases our Garda do not have the manpower, the resources or the backup they need and they are frustrated, when, after working hard on a case to bring it to court they are not able to prosecute a serious criminal. Something needs to be done about that. The gardaí think they can get a conviction but because of some technicality, such as a letter not signed or something else not done, these people walk away from the courts and are on the streets again giving the finger to the Garda Síochána and to the State.

These criminals have no respect for human life, they drive up on motorbikes or walk into pubs and put a gun to a man's or woman's head and shoot to kill. What is wrong with these people? We must deal with them. The decent, honest hardworking people of Limerick have suffered on account of a few families over recent years. Their county and city have got a bad name because of feuds between these families. We must stop them. There were also feuds recently between families in local authority estates in the midlands. The gardaí should be given the resources to deal with this. Otherwise, the Army should be brought in to deal with these dangerous armed criminals.

A young man was killed recently because a family member gave evidence against serious criminals. According to the newspapers this week the criminals are again threatening his family. This is a small country of only 4.5 million people. I do not know why we cannot deal with these criminals. They are dangerous. They are in the drug trade, robbing banks and intimidating people. Surely we can introduce the legislation to give the Garda the necessary resources and backup to deal with these criminals who are the scourge of the country and are giving it a bad name.

I have referred before to people with no known wealth who are driving BMWs and Mercedes, as well as having three or four homes. Some of them are drawing social welfare and pretending that they are dependent on it. We should be giving powers to the Garda Síochána, the Revenue Commissioners and the Criminal Assets Bureau to identify such people in all our communities. If they can show that they won money on the lotto, then by all means they are entitled to it. In that regard, I want to congratulate the usher staff of this House who recently won €1 million on the lotto. The win was well spread out and they deserve it. I am delighted for them and hope they enjoy it. At least they can show where they got that money, but I see people in my own community who do not work driving around in big cars. We all know what they are at, so the Garda Síochána should be given whatever powers it needs to deal with them. These serious criminals must be dealt with. Something must be done because we cannot continue with people being frightened by gangsters who are roaming around the place. We saw it again last night in Tipperary where they were driving around five or six pharmacies. The time has come to give the Garda Síochána the support required to deal with such criminals because the number of murders taking place has got out of hand.

As regards the Bill before us, I welcome the Garda ombudsman's role. Everybody has to be regulated but nobody should be regulating themselves. If someone makes a complaint against the Garda Síochána, the ombudsman's office can deal with it. If there is a complaint under the terms of this legislation, a person will be able to deal with it in the High Court.

The Judiciary does a good job and has a major role to play. In some cases, suspected criminals have the financial resources to hire the best legal advice in the country. The time has come for whatever legislation is needed to combat such criminal activity and the Opposition will not be found wanting in its support for such laws. Fine Gael is the party of law and order and will always support what is right for the country, including whatever legislation must be introduced to deal with these criminals who are roaming around the country murdering people and committing other crimes.

It is a small country so we should be able to deal with the problem by isolating those involved. We should not let these people operate as if they were above the law. People ask me regularly whether these criminals are above the law, but I say they are not. We have always had a good police force in this country since the foundation of the State. I want to congratulate both the newly appointed Minister of State, Deputy Áine Brady, and the reappointed Minister of State, Deputy Michael Finneran, who are present. I wish them well and must tell them that my grand-uncle, Michael Staines from Newport, helped to establish the Garda Síochána. When he had to make a decision which side to take, he took the Free State side.

I welcome this legislation which I hope will go a long way towards dealing with these criminals who must be tackled. The Garda Síochána is doing a good job in difficult circumstances and must be given the required backup. However, the Garda Síochána should not abuse its powers, but rather use them to deal with the criminals we need to tackle. I hope the gardaí are successful because these criminals seem to be getting more and more powerful. We need to deal with them by taking them out of the system.

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