Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to add my voice to the expressions of revulsion at the shooting of Detective Chief Inspector John Caldwell, who was shot at the sports complex on the Killyclogher Road just outside Omagh as he was involved in coaching with his son there, as well as other kids. We see this as an attack on him, his family and the wider community. Those who did it have nothing to offer anybody within the community. Our thoughts at this time are with John and his family. Hopefully we will have better news into the future. There is no excuse for what happened. There is absolutely no place for it. I just wanted to voice that.

Many of my colleagues have already spoken about the support they have for this Bill. We will be bringing amendments. We have all spoken many times in regard to the necessity and the importance of governance, oversight and accountability. We have heard many gardaí speak about this. I spoke many times to a number of superintendents and chief superintendents in County Louth. They have always said that they always wanted to know if there were issues that needed to be put on their agenda in regard to how the community was interacting with gardaí and anything that could be improved upon. Therefore I think that is a benefit across the board. We have seen attempts at streamlining the service. We obviously find that useful, whether it relates to civilianisation or beyond that, to some of the thematic policing such as giving responsibility to certain superintendents in relation to crime, disciplinary proceedings or traffic. Everybody can see the logic in that. However, I want to raise the issue of joining the Louth and the Cavan and Monaghan divisions. That is like having huge urban areas such as Dundalk and Drogheda in this huge geographic area that also includes such places as Mullagh in Cavan. I am not so sure that it will work perfectly. It needs to be revisited. All plans that have been put together need to be revisited.

In regard to community policing I can only speak in the highest, glowing terms on community policing in Dundalk and the interaction that there is with many communities that are suffering anti-social behaviour and so on, with the community policing unit. The problem is there is not enough of them. That is the situation we are in at this point in time. We need to get real about that.

I add my voice to what has been said previously. If we are talking about crime and the issues we are dealing with, we need a citizens' assembly to be braver than we have been - by that, I mean the political class in general. We need to take on the twin issues the Minister has spoken about, namely property and drug criminality. The Minister's comments were useful in the sense of the conversation.

We all know this needs to be health led. An attitude of "Just say no" is not going to work, but that does not mean we cannot say every thing has an impact. I could probably go on for another 20 minutes, but I do not think the Ceann Comhairle will be that indulgent today.

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