Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

It is difficult to focus on this issue because Kildare is within the Dublin metropolitan area, but these are areas that have had significant population changes. County Kildare doubled its population between 1971 and 1995 and it has since doubled its population again. The Minister will know from his constituency that the services do not match the growth in population. The number of gardaí is a case in point in this regard. This matters for the kind of policing we get. We get more reactive policing because there is simply no time for gardaí to go into schools or for community gardaí. For years, Kildare was the only county that did not have even one community garda.

One of my concerns, which I have expressed several times, is risk for members of the Garda. For members to respond to call-outs on their own is high risk. No body camera is going to protect that person. I refer to not having enough gardaí in a location to respond to serious calls. We have seen this in a high profile case where a garda, unfortunately, lost his life when he was responding on his own. I think that happened in County Louth. We must look at where these risks are and they must be mitigated. We cannot view one approach as a solution in respect of making things safer for gardaí. A multiplicity of things will be required. I would have said that the inadequate number of people to respond is a bigger risk than identifying individuals by digital devices or whatever. I ask the Minister to take this point seriously. We are told constantly that resources are down to the Garda Commissioner and the issue has nothing to do with the Oireachtas. It does, however, if there is not a fair distribution. I must be going on about this for 20 years. I have met Garda Commissioners and assistant commissioners and made submissions. I know others have done exactly the same. This issue must be addressed because we cannot grow a population without growing the resources to go with it. Otherwise, we are only creating problems.

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