Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am proud to represent the city of Limerick. Limerick is a beautiful city, with welcoming people and decent, hard-working communities. Yes, we have had our problems in the past, and we continue to have issues with criminality in a small minority of our areas. Some of those areas have really good people and good communities, despite the organised crime gangs and their criminality. These areas are not ganglands, and I want to put on record that that term is deeply offensive to those communities, who reject these thugs and the terror they bring to their neighbourhoods. Yet the Minister's party continues to use that odious term, including in a tweet from the national Fine Gael Twitter account earlier today. People need to stop using the term.

The tentacles of criminality spread across all communities, from rural to urban, and from urban centres to suburban towns. The people of these estates in Limerick, however, with the exception of 1% or less, either have worked or are now retired. They get up to go to work, care for their families, protect their neighbours and take pride in their communities. I am from one such community in Limerick and I am utterly proud to be from there. It is time to get to grips with the scourge of organised crime and ensure it is ripped out of communities urgently. For too long, government after government has failed to grasp the misery and terror these criminals bring.

Fine Gael has had responsibility for the Department of Justice for some time, during which organised crime has spiralled. Fine Gael is soft on crime. Its light-touch approach has seen it slash garda numbers, shut police stations and abandon many of our communities. Unfortunately, in Limerick we have seen garda numbers cut significantly. This Government has shown a callous disregard for the needs of those communities on the front line dealing with the consequences of criminal and antisocial behaviour. As well as under-resourcing the Garda, it has stripped communities of vital community and youth services for those dealing with drugs and addiction.

The first thing Sinn Féin would do to address this situation is to initiate the biggest garda recruitment drive in the history of the State, with a goal of reaching 1,600 recruits per year. This would put gardaí back into communities to protect people and ensure they are safe. In its time in government Fine Gael has cut community garda numbers. In our battle against organised crime, community gardaí are vital. They embed themselves in communities and know the families and the youths. Their mere presence in the community is a deterrent to crime. Their presence in a community offers a counterbalance to those who peddle drugs. The cutting of the numbers of community gardaí is detrimental to those communities most pressured by the organised crime gangs. Sinn Féin would end this scandal.

I acknowledge the work of the gardaí in Limerick in curbing the sale and supply of drugs by organised crime gangs. Our gardaí do brave, crucial work every day as they serve and protect communities and they have my full support. Organised crime flourishes in areas of deprivation. It flourishes when areas are abandoned by central and local government. We see this in estates up and down the country. Fine Gael has been in government for years. There have been Ministers in Fine Gael governments who have hailed from Limerick, yet seven of the top areas of deprivation in the State are in Limerick. Again, when you abandon communities you allow organised crime to flourish.

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