Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to get the opportunity to say a few words on this very important topic and I will refer to a case I had this week. When their house is broken into, people can feel very upset and they are even afraid to go back into their house after something like this happens.

It is so hard to bring the criminal or perpetrator to justice. They have so many avenues. What is terrible is the system whereby free legal aid continues to be made available to people who commit crimes continuously. There has to be some crackdown on that. People feel very hurt and betrayed over it because these people appear in court, get a suspended sentence and they have the best legal aid and solicitors or what have you and the next thing they are caught again a few months later doing something similar and they get free legal aid again. That has to stop. It is the victims of the crime who are always suffering because of this and the criminal or perpetrator does not seem to suffer at all.

The other thing is that people looking for asylum here commit serious crime. Instead of wasting time with them when they came here in the first place seeking asylum, when they commit a serious assault or something we should not be wasting our time or money bringing them before the courts because nothing is going to happen to them anyway. If something does, they will be deported-----

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