Dáil debates

Wednesday, 30 January 2019

Juvenile Crime: Motion [Private Members]

 

3:40 pm

Photo of Clare DalyClare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We will have three minutes each. I hope the Garda Commissioner will come before the Joint Committee on Justice and Equality in order that we can discuss the latest debacle in the juvenile crime statistics. In common with, say, the breath test shambles, and all the others, I will start by thanking God for good gardaí. This report and this issue would not have come to light were it not for the actions of one good garda, in this case a garda working in community engagement, who asked the professional standards unit of the force to examine the youth diversion programme in 2014. The Minister of State, in his closing contribution, might address why it took five years from the time of that request for us to get to where we are now. The headline figure is from an interim report and I guess the reason for the delay is a combination of the fact that record keeping and storage within the Garda is chaotic and, when it comes to scandals, the Garda likes to stagger them. We had the homicide scandal last year so it would not have done to add this scandal at that time.

This scandal has not generated the headlines it should. I assumed young people not being prosecuted for serious crimes was catnip for most of the media but it seems it is not. The media might be fed up with all the scandals. We have let down not just the victims of crime but also the young people who were to be diverted from a path of crime by the youth diversion programme. That was its whole purpose. The lack of early intervention muddies that water.

We do not have a clue about crime statistics in Ireland because of the poor statistic keeping of the Garda. We do not know the information about how we compare nationally, how likely it is that a victim of crime will get justice or whether some crimes are more easily prosecuted than others. We do not know. The crime figures still come with a warning, five years on, which is reprehensible.

The root cause and one of the key planks of that is the appalling IT resources at the disposal of the Garda and the poor quality of PULSE, which Deputy Wallace has highlighted on numerous occasions, as well as Accenture's contracts with An Garda Síochána. It is past time that we had clarity on these issues because the IT system is clearly not fit for purpose. Millions of euro are being spent every year in return for a system that cannot even retain basic records. I hope the Garda Commissioner comes before the committee because we need answers. We are failing all levels of society with our failure to keep proper records.

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