Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Not for the first time, I agree with an awful lot of what the Deputy said. The State's response here has to be across multiple different areas and initiatives. From a justice and policing point of view, the type of criminal behaviour we have seen again this week has no place in a civilised society and will not be tolerated by the Government. We are putting resources in place to ensure that this is the case. Operation Hybrid has been established by An Garda Síochána to co-ordinate the response to violent crime in Dublin and to address public safety concerns about community safety. Operation Hybrid benefits from significant support by armed support units. If we look at the result of that Garda response as of 21 January last, we see 72 arrests;13 charges in total, of which ten related to murder investigations and three of which related to other related offences; 34 firearms seized; in the region of 260 searches; and over 15,000 lines of inquiry conducted with more than 50,000 high-visibility checkpoints. There is a significant step up in terms of Garda presence.

I accept that this is not enough in terms of the State's collective response. This is why under the previous Taoiseach, who felt very strongly about this issue, as does the current Taoiseach, we set up a north-east inner-city initiative to which the Deputy contributed in terms of the thinking on that chaired by Michael Stone. The board includes representatives from the community and business sectors as well as key Government Departments and agencies. The board has met every month since it was established last June and will shortly publish its 2017 report, including a comprehensive detailed report on spending across multiple areas from education to youth development to community development to sports facilities and all the other things that are a real deficit for communities living in this part of Dublin versus communities in other parts of Dublin. That is a gap and deficit that this Government wants to overcome. We will put very significant resources in place to try to do that.

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