Patricia Ryan (Kildare South, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this matter. I recognise the work that went into the review on the modernisation of our criminal justice laws, but to be brutally honest, there is little or no point in doing this until this Government provides sufficient garda numbers to enforce the laws. It is a missed opportunity. The Government has had this, but it has continued to sit on its hands and has failed to provide sufficient gardaí to staff our Garda stations, so the situation will not change.

Other Members have spoken at length about the gardaí. I will do the same because I am interested in knowing how the Minister is going to solve it. I am proud to represent the people of Kildare South and I have lived and worked there for most of my life. However, I am devastated to see what is happening there, such as in Monasterevin, Rathangan and other areas, due to insufficient or no gardaí. That is an understatement. Open drug dealing is taking place on the streets of Athy and antisocial behaviour is taking place in Monasterevin and the surrounding areas because of the lack of gardaí. This is an issue I have already raised directly with the Minister. She gave me an answer saying I could refer it to the Garda Commissioner, Drew Harris. To be blunt, who I refer it to is irrelevant because the point remains that there is a lack of gardaí.

The Garda station in Monasterevin is more often closed than it is open. Phone calls go unanswered or are diverted to Kildare Garda station. We have one Garda patrol car between Monasterevin and Rathangan, which is nowhere near enough to cover the area. How many emergency calls are missed? How many preventable crimes are committed? How many more will go unpunished because there are not enough gardaí to enforce the law? The people of Kildare South deserve to know that they are being protected by the gardaí and that those who are engaged in a petty crime, drug dealing and other such antisocial behaviour will be dealt with in accordance with the law.

I recently made a report of antisocial behaviour to Monasterevin Garda station on behalf of constituent only to be told that the gardaí could not investigate because there was no CCTV footage of it. We have been investigating for years without CCTV footage. That is a lazy attitude in my opinion, and it needs to be addressed. You cannot suddenly decide you are not going to investigate something because there is no CCTV. It has to be addressed.

There are 17 gardaí per 10,000 people in the whole of Kildare and two thirds of them are located in Kildare North. This means that my constituency of Kildare South has fewer gardaí per 10,000, despite the size of the area. That is unacceptable. We need much more gardaí to address the situation.

It is the 21st century and we need to modernise. We need a modern system that is going to work. We want the same for society. I am pretty sure the Minister wants to see improvements. We do as well. There are real problems in the area of justice and they must be addressed. If you do not get the basics right, there is no point and crime will continue. We must stop that. Going back five or ten years ago, people were being accosted outside the local post offices by drug gangs because debts were owed by their families. The parents were paying debts out of their pensions for drugs that their children were forced to take or get. That is not good enough. It still continues and it has to be addressed. The only way we are going to address that is to cut it off at the throat. Today, we see how more women are looking for treatment and counselling for cocaine use than ever before. We really need to get our act together.

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