Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. I appreciate and acknowledge that it was the current Minister who initiated the report and that the Garda provided it in an exceptionally timely manner with very good recommendations, all four of which are eminently doable. The reason for my frustration is that although the report was sent to the Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality last June, it is now February, and even if the committee were to produce a report tomorrow it would take it a considerable amount of time to draw up the heads of legislation and put in place the IT systems that would be required to capture the data by both the cash for gold shops and the Garda.

The backdrop to all of this is the increase in the number of burglaries. The items that are being targeted directly by criminals are items of jewellery and easily sellable household items.

While I understand that the political process is slow, I believe that the longer we procrastinate, the more time and space we will give criminals to obtain money from the ordinary people. It is not fair. I ask the Minister of State to write to the Joint Committee on Justice, Equality and Defence to ask it to wrap up and make recommendations, which I know will not be any different from those in the report of last June. Let us get our skates on and show the criminals that we mean business. In the meantime, I will liaise with the voluntary organisations and those who run legitimate businesses and want to continue with a view to putting a voluntary code of practice in place until legislation is introduced. Let us do this sooner rather than later.

See this speech in context