Charlie O'Connor (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)

I wish to share time with Deputies Michael McGrath, Ciarán Cuffe, Mattie McGrath, Darragh O'Brien and Niall Collins.

I welcome the opportunity to make a brief contribution to this important debate. I pay tribute to our colleague, Deputy Charlie Flanagan, as it is traditional for me to do so on these occasions. By having this business before us, he is giving an opportunity to debate what for all of us is a very important issue. I am no different on the Fianna Fáil benches in that regard.

Much attention has focused on Tallaght this week because of the body found at the location known as the viewing point in Rathfarnham on Sunday. Everybody in the country was aware of this and I received calls from Dublin and beyond which focused on the Irish Independent story yesterday morning featuring an amazing picture of two women in the mountains supporting gardaí and waiting for news on the body. Their respective sons, two Tallaght men, had been missing. As the story developed, it transpired that the body was that of Ken Fetherston, a young man from Ailesbury in Tallaght, who went missing on 22 September last year and whose car was subsequently found in Gorey, Wexford. His body has now been positively identified.

I will speak on this if I may because it is pertinent to the motion. I sympathise with the family of Ken Fetherston because I know them very well and worked with his mother some years ago. They are very distressed, as one can imagine. The family of Paul Byrne, the other young man from my parish in Fettercairn in Tallaght who has been missing since last July, is also upset. Both of these men were fathers and their families have really suffered in an enormous nightmare over the past while.

I want to be positive about my attitude to the Garda in respect of these two cases and I have great sympathy for both families. I have much sympathy for all the other families of missing people who were affected by the news over the past couple of days. I know from other sources that contact was made by Garda liaison personnel with families whose relations may have been in the mountains.

I hope everybody shares my view that we should strongly support the efforts of the Garda Síochána, particularly the efforts of gardaí in Tallaght under Superintendent Eamon Dolan, who are now not only looking for the killers of Ken Fetherston, but also trying to solve the mystery of Paul Byrne. It is important that we give them support and I have no hesitation, as a resident of the area and local Fianna Fáil Deputy, in doing so. I hope I have the support of all colleagues in this respect as it is very important for the Garda to know we are behind its efforts. Any resources required should be made available. I hope the public in Tallaght, Dublin South-West and in the wider areas of Dublin and beyond share this view. The victim's car was taken from the Dublin area and moved to the south east so there is potential for people to help gardaí in that regard. I want to be associated with such action.

I will not stand here and say things are perfect as far as crime is concerned but I support the efforts of the current Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy Dermot Ahern. He has a very difficult task, as his predecessors have had and his successors will have. Law and order is very important and I spent some time on the joint policing board on South Dublin County Council with other colleagues. I take every opportunity to support the work of the Garda in that respect.

I have heard other colleagues speak about the drugs business. I do not have time to develop that idea except to say that, along with colleagues such as Deputies Pat Rabbitte, Brian Hayes and other local public representatives, I am a member of the Tallaght drugs task force. We are very much aware of the issues and very anxious to support the gardaí who sit with us on that task force. Colleagues will take this opportunity to make points — including political points — and this is not a difficulty but, ultimately, it is about the community response to law and order. We must support the State and the Garda.

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