Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I hope those individuals, and they know who they are, are reflecting today.

There is no one in this country who did not anticipate that the far right might seek to orchestrate unrest in our capital. On Thursday, what we saw was a perfect storm, a complete collapse of order on our streets through a combination of failures, namely, failure to tackle the far right and failure to address the triple crisis of morale, recruitment and retention within the Garda. There were failures at operational level, for which the Commissioner and senior gardaí are responsible. There were failures at political and government level for which the Minister for Justice and all in this Government are responsible. We in the Labour Party have no confidence in this Government's handling of policing. Week in, week out, our representatives have been raising the triple crisis facing the Garda on morale, recruitment and retention. We know what is needed, and that is a stronger response against the far right and, crucially, more gardaí. We need more community gardaí and more gardaí on our streets. We should be reaching for more people and more personnel in the Garda Síochána. That is what the Garda is seeking too - front-line gardaí.

It seems the best Fine Gael can offer is more powers. The Taoiseach cannot legislate his way out of this. How will the Government address whole-of-government failures on policing? Will it move to initiate an independent review into the failures which allowed a small group of people last week to destroy property, injure our police and terrorise our community? We must see accountability and know why those failures occurred.

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