Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

On Monday night, a petrol bomb was thrown at a house in Onslow Gardens in Cork city. A number of children were very fortunate to escape without injury. In the past three weeks, there have been two shooting incidents in the city and very many more serious incidents. Communities in Cork city feel neglected and terrified when incidents like this happen. It is not only Dublin that the Minister, Deputy McEntee, has left exposed by the lack of gardaí. Despite the best efforts of local gardaí, under the Minister communities in Cork city do not have enough gardaí on the beat. In 2009, there were 31 gardaí in the Garda station in Mahon, just down the road from the Tánaiste. This number went down to 22 and has now gone down to 17. This month, as I told the Tánaiste last week, Cork only got one of the 126 gardaí who came out of Templemore. It got a single garda. The Minister for Justice is letting communities in Cork and across the State down. What is the Tánaiste going to do about it?

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