Deirdre Clune (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

There have been five gangland murders in the first three weeks of 2010. One of them was in Cork when Gerard Staunton, 42 years of age, was shot in front of his partner and children in a quiet, residential area near Wilton. That has had a chilling, shocking and frightening effect on the local community. A garda reported last week that one shot hit the rear seat of a car where the two children were sitting; it could have taken the life of one of those two innocent children.

This is the sort of incident that communities throughout the country are living with. There was an uncomfortable twist to the story last week when the Evening Echo newspaper received a letter from a group claiming the Real IRA had killed Mr. Staunton and had threatened further action against drug dealers in the community. This follows an incident in September 2009 when leaflets were distributed around purporting to be from the Real IRA claiming it would deal with those who continued to deal drugs. We have no room for this type of vigilante activity. The people living in these communities, parents trying to rear young children and elderly people, are living with the fear that things will blow up at any stage in their neighbourhood where a family member could be involved in an innocent situation.

People want to know what is being done. Many proposals have been put forward in the Fine Gael motion but the most important is to resource the Garda, provide them with the necessary equipment and to increase the numbers working in the community. I cannot emphasise enough the importance of community gardaí. Only 6% of the force works in this area but the information they can gather and support they can give to local communities, the work they can do with young people and the information they relay back to senior gardaí are invaluable. It gives those living in the community a sense of confidence and comfort that there is support for them. At the moment they do not see that and do not have that comfort.

Almost 14% of the gardaí are involved in administrative duties. Why not release them from those duties to ensure they can do the job they were trained to do and that they want to do - protecting their local communities?

The criminal gangs involved in the type of reckless behaviour that frightens local communities must be tackled. They are dealing and supplying drugs to our young people and are responsible for gang turf wars that are claiming the lives of innocent people. There has been an increase in tiger kidnappings, all on the watch of this Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, who has produced emergency legislation to deal with the situation but it has not been dealt with. People want to know what the Minister is doing, and I look forward to his response, to ensure people living in our communities can feel safe in their homes tonight.

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