Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the report and the opportunity to speak on it. Most of my constituency is quite rural and over the last number of years, like everywhere throughout the State, we have seen a massive increase in crime. Some of this is what might be termed "small crimes" such as garden tools being stolen and oil being taken. Many people live in that reality every single day and are targeted time and again because the criminals can go after the same people. We do not have enough gardaí on the ground. Years ago there was a visible presence but now a lot of Garda stations have been closed and when they are open it may be for limited hours. Many stations have opening times on their doors which almost informs criminals that if they are going to commit a crime in the area these are not the hours during which to do it. We really need to see an increase in resources for gardaí on the ground and for community policing.

I want to focus on the Garda youth diversion project, which is an excellent programme. Part of tackling the problem is about a more visible presence of gardaí but part is also to get to the root cause of the issues. We must ask why it is the same people time and again who constantly victimise people who may be their neighbours and others living in the same community. Prevention is better than cure and we need to look at that. One way to do this is through the Garda youth diversion projects. These projects are totally understaffed and their resources are stretched. This must be addressed if we want to prevent these kinds of crimes. People are terrified in their homes in rural Ireland. A range of different crimes are constantly being perpetrated against people. It needs to be looked at in two ways, part of which is prevention, especially around young people and identifying why exactly they are going down this road and how we can prevent that. Much of it has to do with lack of resources and things for people to do in an area. People can go down the wrong path or fall in with the wrong line of life. This would affect them for the rest of their lives. It makes sense to try to prevent this from happening in the first place.

The other part of addressing the problem is to have a visible presence of gardaí. We all remember growing up in our local communities when one would see gardaí regularly. That presence deters crime. I constantly say in this House that this problem requires a common sense approach. If we want to tackle the issue then we need to put the resources and the investment into it.

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