Denis Naughten (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Bill. I also welcome the announcement of Operation Thor, the focus on rural crime and the overtime allocation the Minister has provided to the Garda. A burglary is recorded every 20 minutes by An Garda Síochána. Each case involves another victim who has to deal with the impact of intrusion, the insecurity it causes in his or her home and the vulnerability it creates. People feel isolated, even if they are living in housing estates surrounded by hundreds of people, on foot of having had someone violate their personal space and burgle their homes.

Sadly, what is really frustrating for the members of An Garda Síochána to whom I have spoken is the fact that Operation Thor has been very much more of a public relations exercise rather than the provision of practical resources. It will take time for the operation to feed into the system, but gardaí need resources now. They are still waiting on high-powered vehicles, which I know have been ordered, but we need them now and not in a number of months' time. We need to fill the vacant posts within the traffic corps, which is to be given a special role in Operation Thor. However, at the moment four out of ten posts within the traffic corps are vacant. It is very difficult to run Operation Thor when the Garda does not have the basic resources that are needed.

On basic resources, a Garda station in my constituency has no car available to it. A garda is located in a strategic area of my constituency, through which runs a very busy road. How can a garda in that situation compete with a high-powered car? Does he or she take out his or her bike or stand in the middle of the road and put up his or her lámh to try to stop criminals? That is the kind of thing we are dealing with in terms of the resources that are being provided to some of the remaining rural Garda stations.

I welcome the overtime allocation that has been provided, but the difficulty is that, when spread across the country, in practical terms only seven minutes a day have been allocated to rural parishes and Garda districts across the country. That level of overtime will not make an impact on the policing of rural communities. Additional dedicated resources will have to be provided if we are to deal in real, genuine and practical terms with the fear that is currently out there. While on the one hand additional overtime is being given to Garda districts, on the other some specialist units have seen their overtime allocations cut. They are on the front line and can help to deal with the thugs who are persistent offenders.

The number of Garda stations across the country has been cut. I will refer to those that remain. Boyle, County Roscommon, is now a subdistrict of Castlerea. The Boyle subdistrict office covers the north and east of County Roscommon and encompasses some major roads, including the main Sligo to Dublin road and part of the main Dublin to Westport road. Yet, one needs a calendar to determine the opening times of the station because it is one of the only stations in my constituency that does not have regular opening times. It has four different sets of opening times during the week. Unless one has a calendar and knows which day of the week it is, one does not know whether the station is open and whether one is able to contact it or seek assistance or information. That is not good enough. People should know that their Garda station is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. or 3 p.m. to 4 p.m., Monday to Sunday, and that they can access a garda during those times.

Yesterday, I listened to the advertisements broadcast by the Garda in connection with Operation Thor. The advertisements encourage people to lock up and light up, but forgot to refer to the fact that people are also loading up. Sadly, communities and individuals are now taking the law into their own hands. There have been reports from farmers in Border counties that the only way they can get results when stock has been removed from their lands is to confront the individuals involved with their guns and have it returned. The farmers are getting the stock back, but if farmers in a local community know who is committing such crimes the Garda also know. Obviously, it does not have the resources to secure convictions. This is not just happening in Border counties, but also in my part of the country which has seen a litany of instances where stock has been stolen and burglaries have taken place. It all comes down to local information, which is passed on to individuals.

What is really frustrating is that not only do gardaí not know the people involved in their own communities, they do not even know the geography. I spoke to a constituent last week who called the district Garda headquarters and was asked for an address, which he gave as Taghmaconnell. The garda at the other end of the phone asked the person where it was. Taghmaconnell is one of the few rural Garda stations left in my constituency, but the garda did not know where the individual concerned was located. If gardaí do not know the geography of the areas in which they are located, it is very difficult to police them.

As a result of that and the fear that is out there, people are driving around with shotguns in their Jeeps and sleeping with shotguns in their beds. I am genuinely afraid that we will have another story like that of Padraig Nally in the not too distant future unless we can resource the Garda and bring back a level of security, in particular in rural communities, that is not there today.

Gardaí have stated that 75% of burglaries are carried out by 25% of burglars.

We need to put in place measures to get them off the streets and keep them off the streets. The Minister is to be complimented on this legislation which will introduce consecutive sentences for repeat offenders and will help do this.

I will make a few other constructive suggestions to the Minister which I believe would strengthen the provisions she is making. Similar provision needs to be made for the handling of stolen goods. I ask her to do this because it is far easier to secure evidence and a conviction for the handling of stolen goods than for burglary. it is much easier to prove possession than to catch people in the act. Gardaí tell me it is very difficult to secure a conviction for burglary in the first place unless they catch the individuals in the act or there is forensic evidence linking them back to the particular home. If gardaí at checkpoints can stop the individuals in possession of materials which have been stolen from a home or a particular location, they can prosecute them for possession. The difficulty is we are back to the same problem, which is possession is not treated as seriously as burglary and the sentences are concurrent rather than consecutive. We need to strengthen the law to deal with those caught in possession of stolen goods because, as the Minister has said, one of her objectives is to try to cut out the routes for the sale and distribution of stolen goods. It is important that the law in this area is strengthened.

We need additional Circuit Court sittings to deal with the backlog in some parts of the country. We need to appoint additional Circuit Court judges, perhaps on a floating panel, to deal with the backlog as it arises in various parts of the country. I am told one of the reasons the Judiciary is so generous with bail is that in some parts of the country it takes up to two years for a case to come to court, and if the timeline was far shorter, the Judiciary would be far more sympathetic to having the individual remain in prison until the court hearing takes place. It is hugely frustrating to read reports such as the one in the newspapers last week where one of the nation's most prolific burglars has again been released on bail despite the protests of gardaí that he may flee the country and never be seen again. He is supposed to be connected with up to 60 burglaries in the Limerick and Dublin areas and in the south and south east. Gardaí believe the individual is one of Ireland's most prolific robbers who has dedicated a lifetime to this trade. Gardaí arrest these individuals, charge them and bring them before the courts where they are released on bail in order that they can commit further burglaries. The Minister's officials admitted at the Committee of Public Accounts that this happened six or seven times in one month with an individual. This has to stop. I know this is the Minister's intention with this legislation, but it is important that in tandem with the enactment of this legislation, clear guidelines are issued by the presidents of the courts to ensure people are not being released on bail into communities.

The Minister has spoken about the issue of tagging, and quite a number of speakers during this debate have spoken on this issue. We know 33 burglaries a week are committed by those out on bail while at the same time 60 electronic tags are available to us, with 50 them in a cardboard box gathering dust even though the State is picking up the bill for them. They remain in storage because the Criminal Justice Act 2007, which allows for the tagging of people while out on bail, awaits the Minister's signature. I know the argument she and her officials have put forward on this, that they do not want everyone out on bail to be tagged, but surely it is the Minister's intention to tag a cohort of people out on bail. This is what she has said consistently in her public comments on tagging. The tags are available and the primary legislation to do it is in place, so can we not just sign the legislation, have it enacted and issue guidelines to the courts on what type of individuals should be tagged electronically? The law as it was drafted and passed by the House provides the courts with discretion on whether to tag an individual. It requires the Minister's signature and the issuing of guidelines on the type of individual to whom electronic tagging should apply. These guidelines would be along the lines of the proposed amendments the Minister is speaking about with regard to the new bail Bill. It is a way to fast-track and introduce tagging, literally tomorrow morning, with her signature. It can be brought in on a trial basis in certain parts of the country to deal with some of the cohort of individuals about whom we are speaking.

Where someone avails of free legal aid for criminal offences and is back before the courts repeatedly, there should be a clawback on social welfare or other income with regard to court costs. The difficulty is that if people are apprehended, having been caught red-handed coming out the door of a house with the jewellery or television under their arms, and they end up on indictment before the Circuit Court, particularly in parts of the country with a big backlog, they will seek to have their case held before a jury. Why would they not do so when it gives them two years out to rob wherever they like while waiting to come back before the courts? There is no cost to them because when they come out of prison at the end of it, they will have their loot and still have their social welfare and any other income available to them. Surely, if this House introduces an attachment of earnings on people who do not pay their television licence and have a fine imposed on them and we take away some of their social welfare or income to pay for this, it is not too much to ask that if someone coming before the courts repeatedly and using the court system to delay justice and the enforcement of justice has an income, some of this income should be used to contribute towards the cost of the person's legal representation in the first place. This needs to be introduced. We are very anxious to persecute people for overpayments or not paying for their television licence, but it is about time these individuals started to pay for the cost of tying up court time and tying up the limited resources which should be available for genuine cases where people need a defence.

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