Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have only two minutes so I will briefly try to address a number of matters. Like everyone else, our thoughts are with a young five-year-old girl and her family. She remains in a critical but stable condition. She and others were the victims of a vicious assault last Thursday.

I commend the members of the Garda who are standing on the streets across Dublin tonight. In many cases, they were heroic last Thursday evening when trying to protect our capital city and the people within it. I also commend the members of the emergency services who came under attack when trying to protect others and keep people safe.

The Government is listening. We, like everyone else in this House, are outraged by the events that happened after that vicious assault last Thursday. The Garda assembled approximately 400 officers at relatively short notice and managed to contain rioting to certain parts of the city. It did take time to get control of the city again but those gardaí did an extraordinary job in extremely difficult circumstances. The response since then has been a significant increase in the Garda presence on the street, which is going to remain for some time, and, of course, a redoubling of efforts within the Government to increase resources for the Garda where it needs it, through the provision of equipment, technology and new legislation for where it needs enhanced powers. We will continue to work with the Garda Commissioner and work through the Minister, Deputy McEntee, to ensure everything that can be done is being done from a policing perspective to ensure people in Dublin feel safer. This is not a city that is dying and we should not reflect that sentiment in this House. This is a city that is being challenged by antisocial behaviour and thuggery, and by a far-right movement that is using very sophisticated tools and platforms to whip up hate and violence in a way to which the Government needs to respond comprehensively. We will respond from a policing, legislative and social media perspective. A lot of actions are going to come from the Government.

We in this House should be responding to what happened last week with unity rather than division. That is what the public want. They do not want the main Opposition party trying to carve out political advantage by, as they said themselves, taking out the Minister for Justice and the Garda Commissioner. That serves no purpose and is a cynical and negative political tactic that only serves to reinforce the agenda of people who want to undermine this State.

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