Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

That is just not good enough. With the greatest of respect, nowhere in his answer has the Minister of State made any reference to the Garda station proposed by the assistant Garda commissioner and political representatives. To say that the Minister for Justice or her Department has no role in this area is flatly untrue. We all witnessed the debacle involving Stepaside Garda station when there was political involvement. Nowhere in his answer has the Minister of State given any update on the proposed Garda station which I understood to be well on the way to being opened at some stage in the future. The site has been identified and the Garda Commissioner is on board. Political representatives from the previous Government announced this station.

I came in here today with the greatest of goodwill and expected to get an update. That is all I asked for; I was not going to make a political charge. All I wanted to do was to outline my understanding of the situation and the process. I understand that because of Covid people may have been distracted for a while. That is understandable but I want to know where we are with regard to this Garda station. The Minister of State has just given me a list of numbers of Garda personnel. He has also said something that I have heard from previous Ministers, which is that it has nothing to do with the Government anyway, but it has.

Nowhere in the Minister of State's answer is there any reference to the proposed Garda station, and that is deeply frustrating and disappointing because, genuinely, when I put down the Topical Issue question, I was just expecting to get an update. I did not expect my question to be completely ignored. Where do we go from here? Are we going to get a Garda station or not? My understanding was we were and I wanted to get an update.

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