Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. I acknowledge the unbelievable work of the members of An Garda Síochána and those from the many other emergency support services who responded to the appalling scenes last November after the tragic event earlier in the day. There are ongoing investigations into this matter. In the days, weeks and months since those events, 51 people have been arrested. There have been a number of convictions and there are a serious number of people before the courts at the moment.

I do not think it would be appropriate to get into the cases, but there are two important elements. The first is that gardaí have what they need to respond should something like this ever happen again - and we hope it will not - or if there is a recurrence of what happened in recent times in Newtownmountkennedy and Coolock. The second element is that the court system is working efficiently and effectively. There is an amount of work happening in that regard.

In the early days and weeks following the events in question, I met regularly with the Garda Commissioner, senior management in An Garda Síochána and gardaí on the ground, including those from the public order unit, and assured them of our full support in providing the equipment and resources they need. Since then, a number of steps have been taken, including: the expansion of public order unit capability through the provision of increased training; the provision of stronger incapacitant spray to all gardaí, and we saw the significance of that in the recent Coolock incident; the development of a business case for the procurement of two water cannons, which is continuing; and the provision of smaller round shields, restraints and additional body armour to public order units. In fact, over €3 million has been spent since then, while there has also been investment in the expansion of the public order fleet and the purchase of hand-held cameras.

The enactment of the digital recording legislation in the interim has an important role in the prosecutions. In other jurisdictions where such incidents have happened, police have had much quicker access to evidence through body cameras, drone footage and CCTV footage. Very soon after the Dublin riots, I had the digital recording legislation enacted and, working with the Garda Commissioner, rolled out body-worn cameras.

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