Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I do not know where Deputy Tóibín will be. He deserves his place in the House but in what role I will decide later.

Where does Sinn Féin stand in respect of the Special Criminal Court? If we look at criminality, and the fear and loathing of people who carry out the most evil crimes in our society, many of them were brought before the Special Criminal Court because of intimidation of jurors, or because people were afraid to give evidence or even sit on juries as they would be eyelined, named and attacked and, certainly, intimidated. Let us look at the people who were convicted by the Special Criminal Court. They include John Gilligan, Anthony 'Dutch' Doherty, Brian Meehan and Paul 'Hippo' Ward for the murder of Veronica Guerin; Pearse McAuley, Jeremiah Sheehy, Michael O'Neill and Kevin Walsh for the murder of Detective Garda Jerry McCabe; Michael McKevitt for directing terrorism as a leader of the Real IRA; and John Dundon for the murder of Shane Geoghegan and so on. The list goes on and on. Jonathan Dowdall was convicted not once but twice by the Special Criminal Court. The question for Sinn Féin, when legislation on the Special Criminal Court comes before the House, is that it has never supported it but has abstained. If Deputy McDonald is in government, what will happen to the Special Criminal Court and the other Jonathan Dowdalls who are out there? What will happen to the juries that could very well be intimidated by people who are brought before the court and convicted? That is a fundamental and real question for her to answer.

A key issue in our society, and it is something we have to think about and address, including through public information, is recreational drug use. At present, every time somebody takes a line of cocaine or smokes whatever the drug is for recreational use, somewhere down the line that money is going into the pockets of all those people who carried out all those criminal acts in my town and other towns. It is helping the lifestyles of people who live in other parts of Europe, particularly parts of Spain, as we know from last night's television programme and so on. This is a public health issue. We need to address recreational drug use, including everybody, no matter who they are, who takes recreational drugs that are illegal and outside the law. I am aware there is new thinking regarding those drugs and so on, but we have to make sure that people realise, and we tell them in black and white and in real-life terms, that taking a recreational drug is not just feeding the pockets and earnings of these people but, in many cases, is killing people as well. Many of these recreational drugs are not what they seem to be. There is no test for clarity or purity and so on.

Our society is at a crossroads. Drogheda was in an appalling situation just before the most recent election. Nothing is perfect there but many things have improved. Let us make it clear to Sinn Féin that our party and Government care every bit as much as anybody else about criminality and drug abuse. The difference is we stand by the Special Criminal Court in the exceptional times it has to be used; Sinn Féin does not and has not. In addition, we are dealing with the causes of poverty. The Sinn Féin narrative is an absolute lie. It is a con job. I again ask it to talk to Deputy Ó Murchú and people like him in Drogheda and the rest of County Louth who know exactly what is happening. There are faults and issues to be addressed but there is a significant change in our town because of the action of the Government and the way it is tackling organised crime and criminality.

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