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

I agree with the Deputy in his assertion and comment that we should not use the term "gangland" to refer to any part of our country or any part of our capital city. There are places where crimes occur and those crimes may involve gangs, but it is pejorative to suggest that entire area is therefore gangland. I know large parts of my constituency, including Blanchardstown, where I grew up, is often referred to as gangland. It is no such place. It is a decent place with a decent community and decent families, and just because crimes or murders may occur there does not make them gangland. The same applies to Darndale, Coolock, the north-east inner city and other parts of the country. The same also applies to referring to criminals using the terms of comic book heroes, which glamorises them and should not be done either by us or by people in the media. Deputy Coppinger or somebody else also made that case very strongly yesterday. We as politicians and the media need to mindful of those sorts of terms.

The north east inner city project is one in which I am involved, one I know well, and one about which we often talk during Taoiseach's Questions. There have been some very positive outcomes from that, and while it has not yet, as Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan has pointed out to me on a number of occasions, resulted in a decrease in crime in the area, it has resulted in many good outcomes. It was a unique approach, one that required many resources, both personnel and financial. I am not sure if we are in position to replicate that in many other areas. There have been calls for a similar approach to be taken in Coolock and Darndale. There have also been calls for a similar approach to be taken in Ballymun, in the Inchicore-Kilmainham area, in Tipperary town, and in other places.

While I am certainly open to considering how we might do that, when we do something unique, targeted and well-resourced in one area, because of the fact that it is unique targeted and well-resourced in one area, when we try to do that in five, six, seven, ten or 12, by definition and common sense, it is a diminished approach. We need to look at it in the round to see if there are a certain number of areas we can identity in the country that are areas of significant disadvantage and significant crime, target those, assess them on an objective basis, and perhaps take five or six and have a special approach to them and do it in that way rather than one thing after another being called for and us not being able to put the personnel and the resources behind it, if that makes any sense.

See this speech in context