Finian McGrath (Dublin North Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Leas-Chathaoirleach for the opportunity to speak on this new and important legislation, the Criminal Justice (Burglary of Dwellings) Bill 2015. I welcome the debate because we need to do something urgently to protect the rights of our citizens in this State, in particular our senior citizens and vulnerable people. It is a complex problem, and we all must focus on a sensible response to burglaries and come up with sustainable and sensible solutions. Above all, we have to focus on the protection of human life, which must be the priority. We can deal then with the issues of loss of property, bail and sentencing. For me, the protection of life and the rights of our citizens must be the number one priority.

We must also ensure that this debate is not just a quick response to a particular issue that is popular now because of the current wave of burglaries. Prevention must be part of a proper community policing strategy. There is often too much talk following serious criminal events. We need to be more proactive in terms of prevention.

If all of us are serious about reducing the number of burglaries, we have to deal with the drugs crisis issue and the issue of dysfunctional people in our wider society, which is a more complex issue. One does not need to have a Master's degree in psychology to know that if a young five or six year old child grows up in a drugs fuelled and violent family that child will not have a normal, happy life enjoyed by other children. That is the reality we must face. Some will become very violent and dysfunctional and the remainder will go into themselves, suffer low self-esteem and end up in a very bad and sad place. We all know that from experience. We have all met those types of people in our local constituency clinics. We must examine the complexity of crime, burglaries, dysfunctional people and the drugs issue. Otherwise, we will not solve this problem. We have to be proactive, get involved and do so at an early stage, and help them before these young people end up in our jails or looking for bail, which we are dealing with in this legislation. That is all part of the broader debate on crime and it must be tackled head-on. Otherwise, we are going nowhere.

The purpose of this Bill is to address issues relating to bail and sentencing for prolific burglars of dwellings. That is a good and sensible issue. We must also look at the details, including the recidivism rate, and the data show there is a 79.5% recidivism rate among persons in prison for burglary and related offences, the highest rate for any offence group, and considerably above the overall recidivism rate of 62%. The Probation Service in its studies has stated there is a recidivism rate of 49% among persons engaging with the Probation Service for burglary and related offences. That is an issue we must deal with also.

Burglary of a person's home is a very serious offence and very traumatic for the families affected. While on a walkabout in my constituency the other day I met a lovely family who had been recently burgled. That had a major impact on that family. Nobody was injured or hurt but the personal impact was traumatic for those people. They are often the forgotten victims of this crime. The offence of burglary committed in a dwelling house is an act of aggression for many of us. It is also an attack on the personal rights of the citizen as well as a public crime and a violation of him or her.

We must ensure also that we deal with these issues in regard to the legislation.

I hope policing by text is not seen as a long-term solution. Text messaging can be used by community groups but I hope we will not be relying on it for proper policing. We must have gardaí on the beat in the community on a regular basis.

There are certain crimes that cannot be prevented and will go out of control. We had the horrific murder the other day of a taxi driver, Martin Mulligan, who was just doing his job. I am sure this involved a row about a fare or something trivial but with alcohol or drugs involved. His family are suffering immensely because of this. I have no mercy or pity for people involved in violent crime. Anybody with a knife or a gun or other kind of serious weapon should be nicked. There are too many violent assaults in our society. The carrying of such weapons should not be tolerated. When one digs deeper, one has horrific gangland murders across the State, with another one recently in Spain. However, no major impact has been made in solving these crimes. We have to face up to this reality. A downside of this is the widespread intimidation of communities where people are afraid to talk to the Garda.

When the Minister is addressing these issues, she must deal with the complex side of them, as well as what appears to be popular. It now seems modern policing does not need Garda stations. I strongly disagree. One needs Garda stations in the community. I challenge anyone to argue the €500,000 the Government allegedly saved on the closure of rural Garda stations was value for money, particularly after yesterday when the Comptroller and Auditor General highlighted how millions of euro of public moneys are squandered. The Government needs to wake up and deal with this issue of waste while dealing with policing in a proper and constructive way.

Has the Minister asked the new Garda Commissioner how many hours of a garda’s eight-hour shift are spent on the beat in the community? When I was on the Oireachtas justice committee, we visited London to see community police there do six hours of their eight-hour shift in the community, walking around flats complexes, meeting people and pulling sick and dying drug addicts from stairwells, rescuing and saving lives. Are we getting value for money?

No leniency in granting bail should be shown to anyone involved in violent crime. However, some people are in jail but they have never appeared in court or been convicted. They must wait until 2017 or 2018 before their cases will be heard.

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