Niall Collins (Limerick, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It now wants to remove the presence of An Garda Síochána. The Minister is saying to communities, the elderly and the vulnerable that they should contact the Garda on Facebook and Twitter, and that clinics will be held. There is no policing or financial argument to back up what the Minister is doing in removing the deterrent that a Garda station represents in every community.

With regard to Garda strength, I have asked the Minister on many occasions to nail his colours to the mast. He says he will reduce the number of members of the force to 13,000. We heard two weeks ago that he has not given the Garda enough to fund its payroll costs this year, with 13,400 members. We were told the payroll budget would only fund a force of 12,000. What is the strength that the Minister has in mind? Is it 13,500, 13,000 or 12,000? Will he not tell us the truth? The Minister is being put on notice by senior Garda management in the Phoenix Park that it does not have the necessary budget. The Department could not confirm or deny that the Garda Commissioner has an adequate payroll budget to meet the demand this year. Despite this, the Minister will boast openly about changed rosters. Any garda on the street will tell the Minister that if the force drops below 13,000, the new roster will be completely unworkable and will not function coherently.

When will the Minister be fair to communities and gardaí? Since he is also Minister for Defence, will he explain why he recruited 600 new members to the Defence Forces while refusing point blank to recommence recruitment to An Garda Síochána and open up Templemore for training? There are members of the force who can retire at any point. What will be the position if the strength of the force drops below 13,000 or approaches 12,000 because of an insufficient payroll budget? How low will the Minister allow the strength to drop when communities are vulnerable? He is removing gardaí from communities and asking that we take away their local knowledge and face-to-face contact. He is asking that we allow gardaí to operate on some kind of satellite basis. What he is effectively doing is reducing An Garda Síochána to a glorified Neighbourhood Watch scheme in many rural areas and urban parts of Dublin. Despite this, he sits opposite us in complete denial.

The Minister is completely detached from the reality of people who are feeling vulnerable in their homes throughout the country. The numbers of burglaries, gangland crimes, crimes against the person and cash-in-transit robberies have increased. In spite of this, the Minister likes to quote statistics which I am thankful indicate a trend in the right direction, but all of these crimes are affecting people significantly throughout communities.

The Minister may not want to listen to me or my party colleagues, but he should note that there are no members of his party present tonight to lend him moral support. When we listened to what his party's members are saying to us right across the country, we concluded that he is pretty much on his own. He is probably the only man in the Fine Gael Party who believes in his agenda. Any cursory examination of returns to society would indicate to the Minister that he should be investing in An Garda Síochána. Retail Ireland tells us that €850 million per annum is the cost of crime to the country. This is not my figure or that of my party. If the Minister invested in tackling and eradicating crime, he would achieve a positive rate of return, yet he refuses to do so.

There is a crisis of confidence in the Minister. The people are not confident that he can lead the Department of Justice and Equality and lead An Garda Síochána in the direction it needs to go to deal with crime.

The Minister is in denial about the withdrawal of the face-to-face interaction members of the Garda Síochána bring when they work and live in the communities across this country. He is oblivious to the positive effects of that engagement. He appears to think that withdrawing the services from all these rural communities will accrue some kind of financial saving and lead to a modern police service. Smarter policing is not about taking away face-to-face engagement and dealing with people in a manner that allows on the ground intelligence to be gathered and the police know what is going on in their communities.

The Minister has to listen to me, his own people, the Garda Representative Association and the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors whose members are telling him exactly what I am articulating. He has to listen to what the Garda Representative Association is saying about the direction in which he is leading the force.

It is not too late for the Minister to resile from his decision to close community Garda stations. Public meetings are taking place throughout the country. Public meetings are taking place tonight in Gorey, County Wexford.

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