Niall Collins (Limerick, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The ploughing championships are on over three days this week as we are all well aware. The issue of crime is a central theme of discussion at the ploughing championships and, given the nature of the event, crime in rural areas in particular. That is a huge indictment of Government and a statement from rural Ireland as to how bad is the situation. The Government needs to wake up and really take notice of that. In relation to Garda numbers, there were more gardaí outside Leinster House today for a phantom protest than will be found in many rural areas tonight. That is simply not acceptable. We need to have more recruitment to get back up to 14,000. The fact that the moratorium was held in place while recruitment continued in the Defence Forces was not acceptable. The Garda Reserve is being under-utilised. We should increase the number of reserve gardaí and bring more into the mainstream force. Many of them are being locked out as part of the recruitment process, which is not acceptable when they are giving of their time and service. We also need to increase the numbers up to at least 2,000 reserve gardaí. These are issues I want the Minister of State to take on board.

When he is replying, perhaps the Minister of State can address the following question. If he cannot, he might obtain the information afterwards. There have been some suggestions that up to 40% of directions to prosecute and prosecutions taken have resulted in acquittals. This is in relation to burglaries and related offences. Can the Minister of State outline the percentage of prosecutions directed by the DPP in the past 12 months which have not resulted in convictions? He can revert to me afterwards if he does not have the information to hand.

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