Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to discuss organised crime. This form of crime causes terror, misery and heartbreak for communities that deserve to feel safe and protected. We must stand united against all forms of crime and ensure it is finally tackled once and for all.

I am also glad that the Government climbed down and changed the title of this debate to statements on gangland to statements on organised crime. This is more than semantics. Governments must not be allowed to dehumanise our communities. I did a quick Google Maps search for "gangland" today and guess what? It does not exist. Perhaps the Minister can give me the eircode. My area is not gangland but I am not naïve enough to think it is not devastated by organised crime. Let me be clear. Gangs do not run my area. I will tell you who does run it. It is the man who goes out and sweeps his road. It is the woman who checks on her elderly neighbour. It is the countless community groups like Tidy Towns, the local sports clubs, the majorettes, the youth workers, the addiction services, the intercultural centres and the volunteer groups. It is the ordinary workers and families who run our communities, not gangs. I recognise this, Sinn Féin recognises this and it is about time the Government recognised our communities.

I grew up in north Clondalkin. Parts of my community have been ripped apart by organised crime over the years. These are communities that feel abandoned by the Government. It is no coincidence that some of the most disadvantaged communities are those most affected by crime. Years of cuts and stagnation in funding for community-based services by Fine Gael have eroded community resilience. This is a deliberate ploy by Government, which sees a strong resourced community as a threat to the status quo. Sinn Féin sees the opposite. We see a strong community as an ally in building a fairer and just society for all.

Sinn Féin has always advocated for any money seized by CAB to be put back into communities to build resilience and enhance community services. They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and I welcome the fact that the Government has copied my Bill to return the money seized by CAB to disadvantaged communities. Deputy Ó Snodaigh first proposed this over a decade ago. Because we have a Fine Gael Minister for Justice, it does not go as far as it should. Not one group in my area, parts of which are among the most disadvantaged in the State, received any of this funding this year despite numerous groups applying for it.

Fine Gael, which is the so-called party of law and order, has left our communities vulnerable to criminality. Fine Gael has held the justice ministry for over a decade. I want to be clear. Our gardaí do incredible and brave work every day serving our front line in awful and difficult situations and I meet them on a regular basis. They are being let down by the Government, which refuses to give them the staffing levels and resources they need and deserve. The Dublin metropolitan region has lost a total of 757 gardaí since 2009. This has left our communities vulnerable and feeling abandoned to criminal activities.

The people involved in this criminal activity seem to operate with relative impunity and it is not good enough. There is a real sense of fear and abandonment within our communities. Residents report a lack of police presence in our areas, particularly at night time. The dogs in the street know the hot spots in my area. In fairness to the gardaí, they do react and call out to these areas but they do not have the resources for sustained presence that will have a real impact on these hot spots. As soon as their backs are turned, these people go back to the criminal activities they were engaged in before the gardaí arrived.

We have all seen the documentaries about the supposedly glamorous lifestyle of these criminals with fast cars, big houses and flash lifestyles. There are young people in my area and throughout the rest of the State who are attracted by this lifestyle. They are being manipulated. They want the money in their pockets, the brand new jackets and runners and the status of being a somebody but these criminals are absolute nobodies. Sinn Féin's Bill - the Coercion of a Minor (Misuse of Drugs Amendment) Bill - would help address this. If the Government could invest properly in the communities in which these young people live, it could broaden their horizons and give them better options to escape poverty. Poverty underpins criminality but Fine Gael policies underpin poverty.

Most things in life have a way of filtering down but dirty money also filters up. I have met parents who have been forced to pay drug-related debt their children accumulated. These debts their children apparently owe these unscrupulous dealers are frequently exaggerated and parents end up paying exorbitant amounts back to these dealers for fear of reprisal. The money a mother borrows from a credit union to pay the drug debts of her child flows up to organised criminals, including white-collar criminals. To me, there is no difference between a drug dealer in a tracksuit and a businessman in a flash suit who launders dirty money. Successive Governments have been too lenient on white-collar crime. In government, Sinn Féin will resource our communities and gardaí, make our communities safe again and target crime at every single level.

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