Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)

I take great pleasure in making a small contribution to this debate. I support the concept covered by the Bill because like other Members of the House I have tried over a number of years to focus on the growing levels of crime and the degree to which the public is being intimidated by the increased sophistication among criminal elements.

I am not certain whether this legislation should stand alone or be part of a more consolidated initiative to attack the criminals as they have been attacking society over several years. I am a greater believe in and supporter of people's civil liberties, which must always be observed, whether they are victims or criminals. However, balance must enter into the whole arena and should come firmly down on the side of the citizen. We have seen the development of criminal activity to such an extent in this country that the State has become a laughing stock.

The State is vulnerable and is itself a victim because its citizens are under intimidation and being threatened on a regular basis. Previous speakers have made reference to the intimidation of witnesses. That has been an enormous factor in terms of what has gone on in this country over a number of years. We have no evidence that jurors were intimidated but one can be certain that they would have been, as well as the witnesses, should this have been seen as fortuitous in the worldview of the criminals.

A pattern has been established in Ireland regarding crime levels, whereby young successful criminals start their activities by intimidating their next-door neighbours, kicking in their front doors, preying on senior citizens in the immediate area, "keying" parked cars, breaking windows and generally making a nuisance of themselves. Despite all the efforts of gardaí, public representatives and everybody else, they seem to go unchallenged because it is not worth the time, effort and energy needed to bring them through the system. In most cases it is not even possible to bring them through the system and in any event there is no place to put them. However, if we have not had a place to put them it is about time we got one. They should be given a clear indication by the courts and the institutions of this State that there is no time or place for them in this society. We have had enough and the time has come to take action.

The provisions in the Bill form only a part of what is required at the present time. I do not accept the view that we should stand by indefinitely while make varying attempts to address the issue. We have done that for the last ten or 15 years and it has not worked. How often do we hear of crimes, murders, intimidation carried out by people who have been described as "known to the Garda". That does not mean that there had been ongoing dialogue or the passing of correspondence between them and the Garda. It means that they had come under suspicion for some considerable time and that their activities had been noted. This legislation may be of assistance in grounding such activity and giving the Garda the necessary information that is required.

However, members of the public has become cynical in this regard, especially when they read, perhaps six months or a year after someone has carried out an obnoxious crime against some individual, that he or she was known to the Garda. The time has come when it does not matter whether such individuals were known to the Garda. If the have embarked on activities that constitute a threat to the citizens or institutions of this State then it is time to deal with them. I have come to the conclusion after much consideration, as have many other Members of this House, that the time has come to take them off the streets completely. We should then look at the degree to which they have organised themselves and the degree to which they, or their associates, have carried out criminal activity, including murder. I cannot understand why that is not possible. It was done under the Offence Against the State Act, and I know people might suggest there were some excesses there.

The problem we now face is much more serious than any we have faced in the history of this State. I do not know if people know or fully recognise that. The one thing which is certain is that as long as criminals know they can act with impunity, they will continue their criminal activities as long as they are remunerative, and criminal activities are very remunerative. We often read about how they holiday only in the best places and how they are exiles. We talk about tax exiles but we have criminal exiles as well who live the high life which is much emulated by other young up and coming criminals. The up and coming criminals start off with petty crime but they build up a reputation and become serious heavy-hitters in every sense of the word after a while. Anybody who gets in their way is vulnerable and under threat of intimation and extortion. In such a situation, the criminal with the most power rules the land.

I have great sympathy for gardaí in divisions in which serious heavy-hitters operate on a daily basis. The answer to this problem is to introduce consolidation legislation, put in place all the necessary backup, take these people off the streets once and for all and refuse to allow the people to be intimated on a regular basis by thugs who should be behind bars from the start.

We should start with the most high profile people at the very top, the people with the most romantic and lucrative lifestyles. We believe zero tolerance worked in the United States of America but it did not. In the United States of America, they started at the top and worked their way down. Eventually they got to the guys at the bottom of the crime ladder and were able to deal with them. Former Mayor Koch in New York started at the top and put the really heavy-hitters behind bars where they belonged.

I refer to the civil liberties and civil rights of the people carrying out this criminal activity. Everybody would agree that they have rights. The Minister who comes from the legal profession would take me to task on that very quickly. I am not a lawyer but I have read bits of the law from time to time. What amazes me is how the criminal elements have managed to circumvent the law and are now legal experts. They quote the law. They study it in prison and they operate from there.

How can some of these people organise their criminal empires from within prisons? I visited a prisoner recently and if I was the number one hitman from Chicago in the 1930s, I would not have been subjected to a better assessment and examination. I have no problem with that. It is as it should be. How in God's name have people managed to smuggle in their mobile telephones and all the trappings that go with them and have regular visits from their organisers, their hitmen and hitwomen and so on? We must deal with all those ancillary activities which are part and parcel of what is a growing crime problem.

I agree with my colleague, Deputy Jim O'Keeffe, that, unfortunately, the problem now is that many people, with the exception of a few crime journalists, have become complacent. They look at crime statistics and state that the level of crime in this country is not huge in comparison to other countries. I do not care about the comparison to other countries. We will look after our own country and we should deal with those who intimate the public in whatever way is necessary to put them behind bars as quickly as possible. We should do that by using the law and putting in place sufficient legislation to ensure that anybody involved in, or known to be involved in, crime is not on the street plotting and planning his or her next crime.

The bail laws are flouted on a regular basis. People charged with serious crimes are released on bail to commit more serious crimes, to intimidate more witnesses and to ensure that they can never be put behind bars. I cannot understand that. The law is being brought into disrepute and is being treated with contempt, as are the law-abiding citizens of this State who are also being intimidated on a regular basis. The Minister and the institutions of the State are being treated likewise.

The time has long since passed for playing around with these guys who are well organised thugs. All they have to do is to organise a hit on somebody and he or she is dead. I have been told that it only costs €500.

I mentioned the intimidation of witnesses. Some members of Judiciary have been very courageous in standing up to this kind of thing and some action is being taken. However, the Minister knows this is only skimming the surface of the problem.

If one needs proof of the seriousness of the situation, one should recount the number of occasions when people coming out of the courts have given the two fingers to photographers, news reporters, television cameramen, etc. That is how much respect they have for the law and the institutions of the State. What should be done in a case such as that is quite simple. The person should be brought back into the court and given an extra sentence. That would teach him or her a lesson. Unless that happens, such actions will continue. I do not know how the Minister finds it but I find it very offensive that some thug is able to have his or her photograph taken and put on the front page of a newspaper giving two fingers of contempt for the public. That is appalling as is the fact that our society has degenerated to that level. That we give rights to such people is a sad reflection on our society.

The time has come to ensure that the rights of the law-abiding citizen are not eroded by overly accommodating the rights of the criminals. The Minister has responsibility to deal with them in a serious and comprehensive way. This Bill is one element of that proposal. There is a need for emergency legislation to round up these individuals and to detain them indefinitely. When they come out of prison, perhaps the public will have forgotten they existed in the first place. That will have to happen and somebody will have to do that sooner or later.

There is always a catalyst. We have seen several catalysts in recent times where innocent people have been gunned down in drive-by shootings, in some cases, committed by people out on bail having been charged with serious crimes, including murder. Some people charged with murder have been released on bail and have carried out another one. Why do they not carry out a dozen of them while they are at it? They are free and cannot go wrong.

Where are we heading and how do we handle this? This Bill will not achieve everything but it will be part of the procedures which need to be put in place to at least tip the scales in favour of the law-abiding citizens.

Our society has become complacent. It is sad that each criminal act blots out of our recollection that one that preceded it. In the nature of things, each new event tends to push into the background those that came before it. I would have thought that the appalling murder of Veronica Guerin was a classic example of an event that brought our society to its senses. At that time, I had serious concerns about giving extra power to the authorities in case those powers might be abused. There is always a tendency to cut corners, if the situation demands it. The legislation establishing the Criminal Assets Bureau was initially very successful. I was pleasantly surprised when it achieved a great deal. I am not sure that it is achieving as much now as it did at the outset. I suggest that criminal elements in our society have wised up. They are able to combat much, if not all, of the work of the bureau. They are wiser than they were. They are beginning to compete with the Criminal Assets Bureau. We need to examine the matter again.

Some day, Deputies will come to this House once more to debate another horrendous crime that will seize the imagination of the people. It will be too late at that stage. We will have examined this issue and listened to various opinions on it, but we will have let it pass us by. We will have let the water run over us. We will have failed to confront the issue that has presented itself to us. The time for taking action in this area has come and gone. If we do not wake up to the threat that faces society at present, we will be negligent. The time has come for the Minister to take action. I am not criticising him personally. Everybody knows about this problem, which is a fact of life.

I would like to speak about the increased frequency of so-called "tiger" kidnappings. This insidious type of crime has been very successful for some criminals. In some cases, very little of the proceeds of such crimes has been recovered. While some retribution has been achieved, it has been limited. The lending institutions need to tighten up their security systems if they are to make it impossible for people to infiltrate them under any circumstances. One should not argue that it is impossible to prevent people from disabling alarm systems, for example, because it is possible. Having read about the operation of these security systems, I cannot understand how they can be disabled to the extent that has been done.

Many members of the Judiciary have been courageous in their attempts to frustrate organised crime. They have done that against the background of the possibility of convictions being appealed. However, they should not try to anticipate the outcome of any appeal. They should do their best in each case, given the circumstances and the evidence before them. It is entirely a matter for the next phase of the legal system - the Court of Criminal Appeal, for example - to take responsibility for determining whether the load that has been imposed on a criminal should be overturned or lightened. That is the important part of it. Judges should not anticipate what the higher court might decide, even if it is possible for them to do that on the basis of their understanding of case law. As crime gets worse and more serious and the threat to society increases, the need for us to react becomes more urgent, short and simple.

Like everybody else in this House, I could speak at great length about this issue. I compliment those crime reporters who continually try to bring the serious problem that is faced by society to the attention of the general public, the Members of this House and the Minister. I will not name any of them, because it would not be fair. Long may they continue, and be allowed to continue, to do their work. We should never allow the rights and entitlements of the law-abiding citizens of this country to be eroded by those who engage in crime, including organised crime, and those who benefit in any way from the proceeds of crime.

See this speech in context