Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach might recall that last week I asked him and the Minister for Justice and Equality what steps are being taken in response to an appalling shooting and murder in my constituency. That dastardly crime was the latest in a litany of gun murders, which include tragic victims recently in Swords and Leixlip. The Minister for Justice and Equality told me in January that the Garda's Operation Hybrid had resulted in 86 arrests and the seizure of 91 firearms, including machine guns and assault rifles. I welcome the work of the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau in the investigation of gun crime but the number of firearms seized in almost four years seems low by comparison with the number of reported crimes. There is a significant number of unsolved gun crimes.

Are there further actions the Government and An Garda Síochána might take to prevent firearms entering this country, perhaps alongside our EU partners, by targeting the manufacturers of guns in Europe and elsewhere and addressing the issue of traceability? Do we need to strengthen greatly, with the support of Interpol and Europol, the sanctions for importing and using guns and use our extradition powers to apprehend any criminals outside the jurisdiction who are directing crime in this country?

The Taoiseach might remember that, in 2006, the then Minister, Michael McDowell, who is now a Senator, introduced a weapons amnesty before implementing the Criminal Justice Act, which imposed a mandatory minimum sentence of five years for illegal possession of guns and a sentence of up to life imprisonment for possession with intent to endanger life.

While shootings and murder have the most shocking impact on communities, some districts of Dublin Bay North have also suffered greatly from burglaries, car theft and related joyriding, illegal dumping and serious nightly drug-fuelled, anti-social and criminal behaviour.

There are also regular reports of intimidation of households and vandalism of public facilities, including DART stations. We often hear those reports at the Dublin metropolitan region, DMR, north joint policing committee. A persistent request from our constituents who live in the north fringe of Dublin city and the south fringe of Fingal is for a new Garda station at the centre of this rapidly-developing area, which is destined to be home for 50,000 or 60,000 people.

I received comprehensive replies from the Minister for Justice and Equality and Commissioner Drew Harris regarding the provision of a new police station. The Minister informed me that it is the Commissioner's job to allocate resources, delineate Garda boundaries and so on. Commissioner Harris outlined the actions he has taken and referenced the capital investment and Garda modernisation and renewal programmes. We know from Garda sources that a new district headquarters is being planned for the north DMR and its location in this burgeoning north-south fringe would be best.

The Taoiseach, in his reply, will probably refer to the 21,000 Garda personnel, including 15,000 members, promised by 2021 but is community policing not the Cinderella service in all of this? In jurisdictions such as Sweden, New Zealand and Japan, local community police officers are the core of active policing.

Why have the Fine Gael Governments since 2011 left An Garda Síochána well behind other EU police forces when it comes to the most up-to-date IT assets and modern policing technology methods? We are tired of hearing of deficiencies in PULSE and IT systems and, for example, the late delivery of the hand-held devices for the traffic corps.

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