Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is a reality in this State that crime and antisocial behaviour disproportionately affect communities with high deprivation and those where economic opportunities are most scarce. It is the decent, hard-working people who live in these communities who bear the brunt of the failure of successive Governments to bring criminals and organised gangs to justice.

I realise these statements are on organised crime but let us consider for a comment the impact on some communities. Apart from the fact that they must deal with antisocial behaviour and drug-related violence, there are up to 15,000 heroin users in Dublin alone, with one drug advisory and treatment centre. Between 2004 and 2017, there were 8,995 drug-related deaths in this State, the highest rate of deaths between the ages of 16 and 64 in Europe. In Ireland, there are nearly 20,000 opiate users, many of whom are living chaotic, hopeless lives around this city centre, within a mile or two of this building.

Speaking not just as a Sinn Féin Deputy but also as someone with some experience of the workings of the criminal justice system, I know the Garda and the courts are, as matters stand, ill equipped to tackle the scourge of crime and the impact of drug-related crime in our communities.

There are several gaping holes when it comes to our defences against organised crime. The first and most glaring concerns the resources afforded to An Garda Síochána. Garda retention and recruitment are in a state of crisis. With Garda numbers consistently hovering around 14,500 for the past decade, the number of officers per capitahas fallen consistently, despite the population growth during the same period. Large numbers are leaving An Garda Síochána year after year. In fact, last year saw a record number leaving. They are resigning rather than retiring. This is a direct consequence of many factors, but gardaí tell me there is low morale, affected by a two-tier pay system, poor pay and conditions, increasing bureaucracy and a lack of imagination in reforming the training regime to ensure we put more gardaí on our streets to tackle criminals. Our gardaí work bravely day in and day out to serve communities and keep them safe, often in very difficult circumstances.

Gardaí have my full support. Having spoken to some of them recently, I learned they feel badly let down by the failure of the current and previous Governments to give them the support and leadership they need to get on with their jobs. One garda felt no one has the back of gardaí anymore. These issues have been well flagged, of course. Year after year, we see big Garda recruitment numbers announced at budget time but what is never said is that these targets are not met.

The first thing Sinn Féin would do to address this situation would be to initiate a large Garda recruitment drive – one of the largest in the history of the State – with the goal of reaching 1,600 Garda recruits every year. Gardaí tell me the target of 1,000 additional gardaí this year will not be met. There are simply not enough trainees in Templemore. There have not been enough in the first three months of this year in any event. That is the scale of the ambition we require. We want to have a Minister for Justice who delivers on that because it is what our communities need and deserve.

We can do it by introducing a hybrid training model for new gardaí that would see recruits train in Templemore and local Garda stations. This would boost capacity and ensure under-recruitment finally ends. It would also increase the Garda presence in the areas that need to see officers out in local communities and help gardaí to eliminate the fear of crime as well as eliminate crime and its causes.

The reality of 21st-century organised crime is that more technical experts, including cyber experts, are needed to serve in specialist units within the Garda. The recruitment of people with these skills must be a priority. We need to engage with the Garda to identify and address the challenges in recruitment to ensure the best people are recruited for the jobs and can stay in the organisation to build on their experience.

The failure to establish a dedicated Garda public transport unit is a major black mark on this Government's record. The disgraceful scenes we see on public transport have no place in our society. They must be stamped out. I fully support the establishment of a dedicated unit.

The ongoing discussions around Garda rosters must be addressed and a survey of members must be conducted to help to address retention issues. That this has not been completed is a testament to the Government's inability to plan and address problems before they become crises. We see this in housing and health, and we also see it in policing. It is not good enough. Along with having more gardaí on the front line, An Garda Síochána and the courts must have all the powers they need to dismantle criminal gangs and criminal networks.

Criminal proceeds are laundered, and banks and other institutions play a role in facilitating this. Since this Government came into office in 2020, it has failed to enact legislative measures to deal with this reality in a timely and speedy fashion. Bills on counterfeiting and money laundering were delayed, including through breaking EU-mandated implementation deadlines. This is unacceptable.

Gangs have become increasingly sophisticated, and some of them work in co-operation rather than in competition with each other. The more pressure that is placed on these gangs, the better in order to break them up and ensure they are eradicated. That requires safe levels of gardaí on our streets and gardaí with the resources they need to police the criminals. Courts must be equipped to prosecute them.

In 2021, Sinn Féin introduced the Proceeds of Crime (Investment in Disadvantaged Communities) Bill, which allows for the reinvestment of CAB seizures into the communities most affected by organised crime, in order to alleviate the impact of organised crime and drug use in those areas. This would tackle the root causes and prevent young people from being lured into a life of criminality. Our courts, too, need to have all the powers and resources they need to fight 21st-century criminals.

Every year, Fine Gael makes a virtue of renewing 50-year-old legislation, when everyone accepts this is an outdated means of dealing with the criminals of 2023.

I commend Deputy Martin Kenny and the Minister for Justice in the previous Administration, Charlie Flanagan, for ensuring that a review of these laws is finally initiated. There is an ongoing review due to report soon to update laws in this regard that the Taoiseach said on Tuesday will report soon. We anticipate that its recommendations will include modernisation and we expect to support the new legislation that will recommend dismantling criminal gangs robustly. That is what is needed because despite the rhetoric, and we have heard plenty of it here today, people tell us that this Government is hard on An Garda Síochána and soft on crime.

This has left communities at the mercy of criminals and antisocial behaviour. These communities are wary about walking the streets at night, are terrified in their own homes, fear for their families’ safety and feel unsafe and abandoned. Under this Government, An Garda Síochána is under-funded and over-stretched. Under a Sinn Féin Government, that will change. We will recruit the gardaí we need, give them the powers they require and give the courts the means to put criminals where they belong by taking them off our streets and putting them in jail. We will ensure that communities can feel safe and protected, as they deserve.

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