Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Not recently anyway.

With regard to the crimes whose perpetrators were not prosecuted, along with everyone in the House I am very dissatisfied that thousands of crimes committed by young offenders did not result in prosecution. I really feel for the victims, who have not got justice. They went to the Garda, reported an offence - serious in some cases - and assumed it would be dealt with but it was not. In many cases, those offences are beyond the period specified in the Statute of Limitations so they cannot now be prosecuted, but in some cases they still can. It is really important that this now happens. In some cases, while the offenders might not have been prosecuted for the crimes in question, they were prosecuted for others and were subject to justice in that regard. We need to make sure changes are made so the problem does not arise again. Many changes have been made. The essential flaw was that young offenders considered to be appropriate for juvenile diversion rather than prosecution were referred for neither prosecution nor juvenile diversion. That should not reflect badly in any way on the juvenile justice programme or the juvenile diversion programme. The programme works very well and has been very successful but obviously is not capable of taking all offenders, particularly those guilty of the most serious offences.

Garda resources are improving all the time. The number of gardaí has now increased to 14,000, which is the highest in a very long time. The number will continue to increase, as will the number of civilians in the force. We have set aside a very substantial budget for investment in IT, vehicles and equipment over the next couple of years.

The reforms in the Garda and the Department of Justice and Equality are still very much under way. It is a work in progress. The reforms are very much under way in the Department of Justice and Equality in terms of restructuring, bringing individuals in from outside and refreshing the management team. The programme for the reform of the Garda is a four-year programme and is only getting started but I am satisfied that it is happening and that things are going in the right direction. We now have a real opportunity. We have new leadership in the Garda. There is a much better budget and a reform plan such that we can now make the changes that perhaps should have happened a long time ago.

With regard to the events in Derry, once again I condemn in no uncertain terms the car bomb and the subsequent violence. It is not wanted in Derry. I have been to that city many times in the past year or two and know its good people do not want to see this kind of violence back on their streets. We are blessed that no life was lost as a consequence of the events. We have rejected political violence as a people on countless occasions in the past decade and we still reject it today. There is very good co-operation between the PSNI and Garda Síochána on dealing with republican groups hell-bent on violence.

See this speech in context