Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy McConalogue for sharing time. I want to place on the record of the House my sympathies to the family of the late Detective Garda Adrian Donohoe and to his wife, Caroline Deloughrey, who hails from my constituency. I had the opportunity to visit the family home yesterday evening and to attend the funeral today. It is clear that this House and the entire population are at one in expressing their sympathies and saying to the perpetrators of this dreadful crime that it is not acceptable and that every resource of the State should and will be put in place to bring these people to justice.

I am deeply disappointed that the Minister has sought to complicate that issue with the motion before the House. I compliment Deputy Niall Collins on putting down the motion in the first instance. I compliment him on resisting the Minister's cynical attempts to utilise this crime as a means of getting this debate off the agenda. It was a cynical attempt by a Minister who has lost touch not just with the people but with the entire force of the Garda Síochána. I have spoken to many gardaí in recent days. They did not want the two issues connected. The Minister succeeded in doing that. They wanted this debate to go ahead. If the Minister were genuine in his desire to change it he would have deferred the closure of the Garda stations but he presented this arrogant Al approach to the effect that Fianna Fáil is wrong, it is responsible for everything and let us dump on them again. The people have seen through that this time, and the Minister's cynical attempt to connect these two events will come back to haunt him in a way that he deserves with regard to this particular issue.

The Minister sought to justify the closures of Garda stations in rural areas by suggesting that he is implementing smart policing. Does he realise how hurtful the use of that word is to the men and women who have served this country since the foundation of the State? Was their policing not smart? Was it somehow "thick" policing? What is the Minister at using that kind of offensive language to suggest that he now has some smart way of doing it? In the rural areas with which I am well familiar he has sought to utilise the notion that somehow the closure of the station gets the gardaí off their soft chairs and out of the warm confines of these rural stations. Rural policing and the policing that has centred around those stations has meant the garda comes to the station for an hour, does his or her administration work, and then circulates in the area. The Minister's idea is to get rid of that, and he somehow believes they will be able to resolve the policing matters by driving through the area.

This is the first step towards the urbanisation of the Garda Síochána because he knows full well that as pressure comes on in the urban areas the gardaí that were assigned to those rural areas will not get to go out in the morning because they will not be rostered to open the station. Ultimately, there will be no rural policing. There may not be the available resources to provide the cars, and the Minister was slow to provide the cars on which his colleague beside him gave the wonderful delivery to the effect that it was great he managed to find the resources when he came to office. He found the resources when the gardaí showed him up and started to talk openly that they were not in a position to do the most basic of rural policing. The Minister will smile. He is okay. He will go back to his leafy suburbs in south County Dublin when there are men and women, elderly and young, living in absolute fear because the Minister has closed the doors on them and switched off the lights in many rural communities from tomorrow night onwards. That will come back to haunt him, and it is what he deserves.

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