Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

I am pleased to have an opportunity to contribute to this Bill, which contains a hotchpotch of different provisions. It deals with the European arrest warrant, which was introduced some time ago, the Schengen information system, which brings our standards into line with some of those in other parts of Europe, and other miscellaneous provisions, particularly dealing with the amendment of legislation on handguns, knives and imitation weapons. It is a standard criminal justice Bill and has a bit of everything. Whether it is relevant to dealing with crime is another issue.

It is imperative that the House legislate relevantly and put in place measures that will achieve what we intend to achieve to protect citizens. The first sentence of the explanatory memorandum states:

The purpose of the Bill is to amend certain provisions of the Criminal Law which have been identified as requiring amendment in light of their operation since enactment, to update their provisions in line with current requirements in the operation of the criminal justice system and to give further effect to [various other decisions].

The extent to which the provisions we introduce are useful is the test of the legislation. We must be concerned about civil liberties and ensure there are sufficient safeguards in legislation of this nature.

My main concern is the implementation of criminal justice legislation. I have been spokesperson in this area for some time, including during the term of the previous Administration. I once described the former Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform as a serial legislator. He introduced legislation to be beat the band and the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform was effectively a factory for the production of criminal justice legislation. Of all the Departments, it produces the most. Given this enormous output of legislative proposals, we must ask whether we get the desired return in terms of implementation and product.

The most important Department in terms of determining the quality of people's lives is the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. It is concerned with anti-social behaviour and the environment in which people live and has an effect on whether people in their homes are safe from burglary and whether they can go out at night without being concerned that somebody is carrying a handgun or knife or is likely to carry out a physical assault. These issues are all concerned with the quality of life of the citizen. Unless it is protected, we are in serious trouble.

The provisions on handguns in the Bill have received the most scrutiny, in addition to the provision stipulating that firearms dealers should tax have clearance certificates. One would have believed the latter provision would not be necessary in a Bill at this time. The same applies to the provision that the importation of handguns can only be carried out by a registered firearms dealer. These are the sorts of provisions one would have expected would be in place and would not need updating. They should already be subject to the tightest legislation and everybody involved in any way with the firearms industry, be it by way of importing, selling or handling weapons, should be on a register. This is clearly not the case because if it were, we would not be amending the legislation now.

Handguns are the main type of weapon in use in recent times in Ireland. Their being readily available here means we can expect every criminal gang going out to rob and break the law, and individuals involved in burglaries, to be carrying a loaded weapon. That is the state of society at present. Some weapons have become available because of the importation of drugs. It is common to have guns in every major consignment of drugs. This development has probably been the most serious criminal development in this State since its foundation. We now have two deadly weapons being used against citizens. Drugs are being sold that are killing people all over the place. In my constituency there are communities that have been devastated by the sale of cocaine and heroin. At the same time there are deadly turf feuds taking place in Limerick and Dublin between various gangs and various elements of those gangs. Drugs and guns combine to create a cocktail of violence and damage in respect of which the authorities are not really in control.

In 2003, the great former Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Michael McDowell, told us the shooting dead of a criminal by another was the sting of a dying wasp and that he had the matter under control. That was six years ago but since then the number of fatalities and injuries associated with gun crime has increased. The quantity of drugs imported to and seized has also increased. This simply means that, despite the fact that the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform has been a virtual factory of legislation, we have not been able to get on top of serious crime, not to mention low-grade crime and anti-social behaviour. Young people are afraid to go out at night in certain urban areas. The authorities have not come to terms with either low-grade or very serious crime.

The real issue concerns how we come to grips with the problem and ensure the people involved in crime are brought to justice. We must ensure the State asserts itself as being in control such that we do not have any incidents such as those that were perpetrated by the Mafia in Chicago or the Bronx. We must not have any areas run by a Mafia in this country. Certain areas in the country are becoming ghettos and are controlled by criminal groups. The more this occurs, the more the respect for law and order will diminish and the citizen will be less secure.

The Government should have been dealing some time ago with the fact that dissidents from Northern Ireland are appearing on the streets of Dublin. There are pipe bombs, shootings and weapons. An overflow of weaponry from the North is evident here and violent behaviour spread across the Border after the peace process proved successful in the North. It is time to take a fresh look at the degree of decommissioning that has taken place. There is no doubt but that there are weapons in existence that should have been decommissioned as part of the peace process but which were not.

There are dissidents who have never moved away from their violent behaviour across the Border and who are now involved in criminal behaviour here. These people might have been outlaws, as it were, in their own organisations, operating to some degree independently. There is now quite an element of this type of activity, with dissident-type weapons and information on how to produce bombs increasingly appearing on the streets. The situation is getting worse all the time. The number of pipe bombs being discovered by the Garda, which the Army must be called in to deal with, is increasing. It is not just handguns and knives; it is now bombs. Many of them are not fully primed, but some of them are.

We must make every effort to get on top of this. Our biggest problem is that we never got on top of the drugs crisis. In the old days, when the drugs crisis was limited to Dublin and only heroin was involved, it was not taken seriously. Communities were left to rot before the authorities decided to take any action. For about 15 years - from 1979 to the early 1990s - heroin never moved out of Dublin. Only in the 1990s did it become available anywhere else in the country. During that period no serious attempt was made to stamp it out, which allowed communication networks to be established in other areas, and it has now spread like wildfire and is to be found in every urban area throughout the country.

The same thing happened with cocaine. There was no cocaine in the country at all until after that time, but now it has been channelled into the same distribution networks and is available everywhere in the country. This is because there is no task force in place and no plan to deal with the latest drug or weapon. Whether it is a crack-cocaine-style development or a pipe-bomb-type development, where is the plan to deal with these new innovations from the criminal side? There is none and, as a result, these innovations take off. They are not dealt with and then they become part of the criminal network. That is happening all the time. We are putting through legislation after the event which is ineffective in dealing with the matter.

To give one example of the lack of proper implementation and focus, I will mention something I raised in the Dáil a few days ago. Three weeks ago the people involved in the largest ever haul of drugs in the State, which was in the Ceann Comhairle's own neck of the woods, were convicted. Almost €500 million worth of drugs were seized, and the people involved got a mere ten years' sentence, which is strange, considering that is the minimum sentence for anyone who is caught with a small amount of drugs - €13,000 worth - or, under the amended legislation, €150,000 worth, depending on how one interprets it. Somebody who has been responsible for importing €450 million to €500 million worth of drugs should be subjected to a more serious penalty rather than the minimum prescribed. However, that was the decision of the judge in the case.

Another decision of the judge in that case was that the Garda was obliged to register those involved on the register of drug offenders when they were brought to prison. The Garda went out and tried to do this and, lo and behold, it could not find a register of drug offenders. Members will remember that one of the acts of the then Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, former Deputy Michael McDowell, was to pass in October 2006 a Criminal Justice Act that made provision for the establishment of a register of drug offenders. However, the Minister has never actually introduced this and the Garda Commissioner has not implemented that part of the law. There is no register of drug offenders. Here we are, talking in the House about how we are going to deal with serious criminality, yet when we pass legislation nothing happens. The three gentlemen who were sentenced are going to prison, but there is no register of drug offenders to put them on. They come out of prison and they can go anywhere in the world without being on a register.

I live in a constituency in which there is much criminality related to drugs. The Evening Herald, which is regarded very much as the local newspaper, will tell one that those involved are flitting across from Ireland to Spain to the Netherlands and around the country, or are operating within our jails with impunity and causing mayhem. Yet not a single one of them is on a register of drug offenders. How do they go abroad? It is unbelievable that we are not making a serious effort to curtail this in a serious operational fashion. When the Minister is summing up I hope he will give us some indication, three years down the road, of when we will have that register of drug offenders. We do have a register of sex offenders and the Garda is responsible for vetting that. There are many complaints about it not being tight enough. However, we do not even have a drug offenders' register. People who are convicted and whom the judges believe will be put on the register do not end up on any register. Perhaps there will be some action in this regard. Again, this highlights the lack of meaningful implementation of the law with regard to serious criminal matters.

Even in matters that do not require legislation, it is a question of implementation. The Ceann Comhairle, who was Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, knows that; we can pass all the legislation in the world but unless it is implemented it is a waste of space. Unimplemented legislation results in a lack of respect for legislation.

One of the latest developments introduced by the Minister of State at the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Deputy John Curran, is an initiative called Dial to Stop Drug Dealing. This has been rolled out in three phases throughout the country, with a call centre in Manchester. There are many people who are afraid to go to the Garda because they cannot be seen doing so, particularly addicts who owe money and are under great pressure from drug dealers, and their families. They cannot go to the Garda station and they do not want a call to be traced. However, Dial to Stop Drug Dealing, which is an absolutely confidential telephone line, was established last September and has produced great results. The response I got from the Minister to a parliamentary question the other day was that 2,500 calls had been made and 700 of those had been acted on successfully by the Garda. That compares well to the Garda's own confidential line, which had only 3,500 calls in the course of the whole year, although it has been in place since 1992. I could not get figures on the amount it cost to keep the Garda confidential line in operation because I got the usual reply from the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform that to compile the figures would cost too much in terms of resources and manpower. The cost of Dial to Stop Drug Dealing is minimal, and it is being rolled out in its third phase at present. However, by September the call centre is to be closed down. The entire project, which has proven successful and been of great benefit in disadvantaged communities where people cannot go to the Garda directly, is to be closed down. All the work that has been done by communities in putting posters up in public houses and providing beer mats with information on "Dial to Stop Drug Dealing", letting people know the law, counts for naught. Here is a successful project that is being knocked on the head. How much would it cost to keep that call centre open per month? Only €1,500. The funding comes from the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform and the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs. I am making a plea that this useful weapon in the fight against drugs in disadvantaged areas not be terminated because of a paltry sum of money but that it be maintained in operation as part of an ongoing, mainstream approach to dealing with serious drug crime.

These issues must be addressed in the context of the legislation. I hope it succeeds but more then anything else, I hope to see existing legislation properly implement.

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