Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We will absolutely support the Garda in resourcing Operation Thor, in recruiting gardaí and getting more gardaí on the streets and rolling out the community safety plans in every county in Ireland in 2024. The numbers show a stark improvement. Every burglary impacts on a person or family. I do not dismiss in any way the significance of that individual trauma and loss of a sense of security. I will give some figures for Cork. For example, in the Cork city Garda division in 2019, the last year before the arrival of Covid, there were 484 burglaries and last year it was 268. In the Cork north Garda division there were 232 burglaries in the last pre-pandemic year and 134 last year. In the Cork west Garda division, there were 99 burglaries in 2019 and 69 in 2022. These are reductions of 44%, 42% and 30% for each of those three divisions respectively, which is good progress. It is down to a combination of things. The intelligence-led operations are genuinely identifying big organised crime gangs and bringing people to justice. I commend the work the Garda is doing with communities with, for example, text alerts. We cannot do enough in that space.

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