Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

That is the last time I give that fellow an inch. It is almost unbelievable that we are talking about seven people being gunned down in the capital. There are people who might say it is grand as these gangs are killing each other and they are doing us a favour. As has been pointed out, there are many innocent and uninvolved people getting caught up in this. It is an appalling indictment of where we are at. The latter speakers in the course of the debate are correct in trying to emphasise that our approach to dealing with crime must concentrate on the root causes rather than just the horrific symptoms we have seen in the recent period. If the Government is serious about addressing crime, there are no two ways about it as social exclusion and poverty must be addressed. Otherwise, it will simply amount to window dressing.

As Dr. Niamh Hourigan pointed out in the Irish Probation Journalin 2012, there are strong rational reasons to engage in criminal activity within contemporary Irish society if a person is poor, young and marginalised. Dealing with comprehensive research in the area, she points out that what we are now dealing with is a consequence of State policy over decades in failing to fill the gap caused by unemployment arising from factory closures, addiction, poverty, disadvantage and housing estates overwhelmingly made up of people without an adequate social mix. That is coming home to roost. We are talking about Garda resources and all the rest but if we do not address those issues, we will not get to the heart of the matter. Any discussion on crime cannot take place without a comprehensive approach to the drug problem in our society.

There are two issues. Users of drugs are engaging in petty or more serious crime to feed their habit and there is a lack of resourcing to support them. More important, there are massive profits in the drug trade as a result of our policy of prohibition. It is as simple as that, particularly when we deal with drugs like cannabis. It is almost unbelievable that in the last Dáil, only eight Deputies voted to legalise cannabis. Not only would that develop a revenue stream for the State, but it would take a lucrative first step into the profits of many of these gangs. If we really want to deal with them, we must deal with them through their bank accounts. The response we have been hearing, of course, is talk of arming gardaí with AK-47s and the Special Criminal Court. I was disgusted to listen to the Tánaiste using this serious debate to have a pop at Sinn Féin over the Special Criminal Court. Traditionally, the Labour Party prided itself as being on the side of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and the European Court of Human Rights, all of which have indicated that the Special Criminal Court is an abomination in terms of human rights. Not only that, it does not work; it has existed for years and I have repeatedly been told through answers to parliamentary questions that it is to deal with gangland crime but it has not worked. If we keep going down this road, that will not work either.

I agree with the points made about Garda resources. This is not just about numbers, but rather where the people do their work. We must take into account morale or the lack thereof. The policing service must be radically overhauled. We cannot deal with the issues of drugs and crime if we do not deal with the prison system. Rather than being a facility to rehabilitate and reintegrate people into society, prisons are a breeding ground for further criminal activity and drug abuse, given the amount of drug use rife in our prisons. Any attempt to deal with these issues must consider them holistically.

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