Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I seriously expect the Government at least to support the Bill's proceeding to Committee Stage.

This is an issue that has been addressed at virtually every joint policing committee, JPC, around the country. I am one of those who has served on a JPC since such committees were founded and who encouraged the then Minister to set them up to address problems such as this. When the local authority members, national public representatives, local gardaí and officials from the local authorities come together and find problems in legislation that need to be addressed, they can raise those issues.

This issue has been raised in particular in Dublin, because that is the area that I am well aware of. Time after time, we have been told by the Garda and local authority officials that their hands are tied. This piece of legislation is to address a particular problem.

I was not in the Chamber to hear all of the speech by the Minister of State, Deputy Tom Hayes, but I have not heard such claptrap in all my life. Most of the four-page script that he read out had nothing to do with the point that has been raised, but one of the worst aspects is that Deputy Tom Hayes knows about his own local authority area in south Tipperary, where this is a problem. Deputy Tom Hayes raised the issue of anti-social behaviour in the towns of Cashel, Cahir and Carrick-on-Suir in this Chamber when he was on the Opposition benches. The local authorities in those areas with which he is familiar have identified the misuse of quads and other motorised miniature vehicles as a particular anti-social problem in specific areas. I will give one example, which emerged only recently, in the Glen Oaks estate in Clonmel, of which Deputy Tom Hayes will be aware. It was only last year that the local authority had to take measures to put in place two walls to prevent access to a field which was being misused by anti-social elements in that town.

One of the residents' chief complaints related to the noise associated with the misuse of scramblers on that site. If it was so easy for An Garda Síochána to-----

See this speech in context