Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputy Mattie McGrath. I offer my deepest sympathy to the family of Detective Garda Colm Horkan, who gave his life for the safety of others. May he rest in peace.

Section 8 of the Criminal Justice (Amendment) Act of 2009 has given us legislation on tackling organised crime throughout Ireland. Even through a pandemic, we have seen cases of individuals and gangs who continued to wreak havoc on our society. I can only commend the Garda on the unlimited sacrifice its members provide to ensure we live in a safe and peaceful society. Some 139 Garda stations were closed between 2012 and 2013. In Limerick, we only have three full-time Garda stations in the county. Other stations only open for one or two hours a day, if they are opened at all. We need gardaí on the beat on a regular basis, particularly in areas where crime rates are high. The number of gardaí being trained and deployed into the areas does not meet our needs. When the pandemic hit, the Garda Síochána had to hire vehicles to cover the areas. In all other industries, whether it be in construction, retail or whatever, health and safety comes into everyone's business. We can see that with the opening of shops at the moment. However, we have seen how gardaí are sent by themselves to crimes or altercations in houses. In all the local authorities' criteria for work practice, nobody goes out to a job alone. There must be two or three people, depending on the work.

The biggest issue here is the drug trade. Drug dealers are targeting age groups over which we have no control. Families contact me regularly because their children are being enticed into trading in drugs, anti-social behaviour and gangland feuds. For teenagers, there is no law in place to protect them. Something has to change. We do not have the Garda numbers we need. As much as we have been asking for gardaí, we do not have them. We do not have the equipment to deal with gangland crime and anti-social behaviour. Statistics show that criminal gangs are moving into rural areas where it is harder to detect them because they know we do not have Garda manpower. Technology was introduced but, yet again, laws have been put in place to stop the videoing of different crimes. The technology is there to help us. Cameras have been put up in various towns but if a garda wants to access the footage, he or she has to leave the barracks and go to a place to sit down for hours watching a video. If something is happening on a road and the video technology is linked to a unit and licensed to a garda, if he or she turns it on, it is licensed to him or her only. Within a split second, the garda can see if there is a robbery taking place and if a car travels through a town, the number is recognised and linked to all these units. The technology is there but the laws are not there to change this. We cannot police rural Ireland with the number of gardaí we are being given because of the square miles involved. If the Government introduced laws to allow the technology to be used and licensed it to individual gardaí in Garda units so that they are accountable, we might be able to combat crime in rural Ireland.

See this speech in context