Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach is presiding over a Government that seems to see crime as something to be responded to only after the fact. I read the programme for Government once again earlier, I heard the Taoiseach's statements and I listened to the Minister for Justice on the radio over the weekend.

There does not seem to be any co-ordinated strategy for a violence reduction approach. I hear the Taoiseach talking about increased sentences for knife crime from five to seven years and I have heard him mention body-worn cameras. What are we going to do on violence reduction? We accept violence is increasing on our streets so surely the Taoiseach will accept we need a strategy that is multiagency and that is approaching this from different angles to confront that. There are examples. There is best practice and evidence-based policies. I see none of that in the Government's programmes.

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