Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Step three is to make it more difficulty for organised criminal actors to pursue power and profit. We do this by targeting problem-orientated policing and visible community policing around the clock. We need to separate the functions of the police so that personnel who are expected to engage and build relationships in those communities are not the same people we ask to start going in and knocking down doors. That has to stop. Community policing is absolutely essential. It involves building up a relationship where people know their local garda, he is on the street and they see him. We need to ensure that schools, community services and residents' associations are equipped, trained and deemed responsible for ensuring their own community safety as well. This is a job for everyone, not just the police. It involves mobilising communities against organised crime actors through public information campaigns on drug-related intimidation and its negative impact on the community. It would break down the false support these actors have harnessed through fear. It would involve designating local community champions and role models, people who we can point to who are successful not only through the traditional sporting endeavours that we usually do, but also building up access for those who get to go on to university and into the jobs market. It would demonstrate that there are alternatives.

If we are serious about combating organised crime, we have to break the cycle of it. I can guarantee that we can point to families and communities who have suffered from this for 50 years, since heroin first came in. If we only try a policing solution without actually attempting to combat poverty, increasing educational attainment, giving greater access to sport and to the arts, empowering people through dialogue and building trust with services of the State, it will not work because that is the only way we will ever get in front of the problem. Organised criminals and organised gangs fill gaps where others believe and rightfully feel the State has abandoned them. If we continue with what is being advocated on the Government benches, we will just be back here again next year and the year after that. We are committed to this. Let us try different approaches. There are models that work.

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