Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

My generosity overflows.

We need to be very careful when we move in this direction. As Deputy O'Dowd has said, there are truly evil people who know no bounds and who are determined not only to dominate their own society but also to poison it.

Deputy O'Dowd mentioned the extraordinary work going on in Moyross. When Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government I was very pleased to fund that work and to be instrumental in selecting the former Dublin City Manager, Mr. John Fitzgerald, to lead it. Moyross is an extraordinary example of a society which is struggling against great evil. It needs to be praised and not stigmatised. There are many actual and potential Moyrosses throughout the country. There are many areas where societies need to be freed from the extraordinary influence of small numbers of evil people who are not prepared to be bound by any sense of decency or by any or the mores and norms of civilised society. I agree fundamentally with the Deputy.

A Bill such as this cannot be taken lightly. We must strike a balance. There is a requirement that we do not cross the boundary between the protection of civil liberties and the natural anxiety of law makers and public representatives to protect our constituents. There is a need for this legislation.

I listened earlier to contributions made by Deputy Pat Rabbitte when he spoke about the Labour Party on a Private Member's Bill and by Deputy Michael Noonan when he spoke about specific areas. Members may know that long before I became involved in politics I was honoured with the positions of membership and later chairmanship of the Irish Commission for Justice and Peace. To establish where that boundary line exists between the right of a society to protect itself and the issue of civil liberty is always difficult.

The Bill strikes an interesting balance. Crime and the technology that surrounds it has changed dramatically in recent years. A few years ago, while canvassing with the then Taoiseach, Deputy Bertie Ahern, in a part of Bray that will be well known to Deputy Liz McManus, we noticed that something untoward was happening. We agreed to phone the gardaí because we suspected that drugs trafficking was going on. As soon as the call was made and was being responded to by the gardaí, one could see activity. The traffickers were scanning Garda networks, finding out what was happening and were able to clear away. We need to catch up with the technology the criminals have. That point was made by Deputy O'Dowd.

However, we face a problem in this regard. Garda surveillance is ongoing. The gardaí are using new technologies in this area but there is a legal ambiguity. The last thing we need to see is courts, which have no option but to uphold the law, striking down cases which are otherwise well constructed because there has been ambiguity about the use of surveillance equipment. It is critical that there is a proper statutory basis for the use of new technologies by the Garda Síochána, the Defence Forces and the Revenue Commissioners, and for the appropriate use of secret surveillance methods in preventing and detecting serious crime and safeguarding the security of the State against subversive and terrorist activities.

I agree with Deputy O'Dowd that one of the most subversive activities in our nation at present is the peddling of drugs and the barons of that industry. The misery they visit on societies and the knock-on effect of their activities is astonishing. It is as if a large rock were dropped into a still pool. Their effects ripple out and touch all parts of society. We have all seen this phenomenon in our own constituencies. We have seen how the smart alecs stand back and, because they have power or are particularly ruthless, use other members of society. The only way we can get to them and protect society is by providing the gardaí and the other forces of law and order with the equipment to fight the battles.

Much of the work of the agencies concerned is directed at serious gangland crime and subversion. We have seen in recent times how people in these groups could not care less about the normal mores of society. They could not care less about what we do in this House. On behalf of the people we represent, we must make it clear to criminals that there is no place they can hide. There are areas where a multidisciplinary approach can be effective, particularly regarding serious offences such as witness intimidation, assaults, murder, extortion and a web of other offences. We must arm ourselves and our society to protect it. What has happened in recent times in parts of Ireland is truly awful. Witnesses have been intimidated. We thought we were past that but we are not.

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