Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Minister for his reply and welcome the trend he identified. I wish to focus on a couple of areas, and in particular aggravated assaults. There were two very high profile incidents at Christmas and last month and we sympathise with the families of Andrew Dolan and James Tynan.

There is a difficulty in our urban centres, in particular at weekends, where drug or alcohol related incidents occur. The Minister spoke about the safer communities campaign but there is a fear of being in many urban centres at weekends after a certain hour. Is there a specific strategy in place either in the Department or the Garda to address that issue, in particular in light of the completely unwarranted and aggravated assaults which I mentioned and which take place every weekend, although we do not hear about them?

We will probably get the chance to debate the crime figures next month but, last week, we saw a very serious spike in the number of gangland attacks and crimes. Is the Minister concerned about that spike or is it under control? Has he discussed last week's incidents? We had the incident in Tallaght where an innocent bystander, Melanie McCarthy-McNamara, was killed. Has the Minister had any discussions with the Garda Commissioner or the Garda authorities in regard to that issue?

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