Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate the new Minister of State, the Ceann Comhairle and the Leas-Cheann Comhairle on their new positions. I wish them well.

It is self-evident that with the rapidly increasing population, more gardaí are needed. I am very glad that the Government has taken very positive steps in that regard. Figures from Templemore indicate that it will probably be successful in its attempt to recruit 5,000 extra gardaí in the lifetime of this Government. I hope that it does so.

I will make one special plea to the Minister of State. A study is under way on the reconstitution of the Garda Reserve, which has the capacity to be a powerful adjunct and addition to the Garda force, not just in policing public events but in deterrence, especially in areas afflicted by antisocial behaviour. I ask the Minister to conclude and act on that study as soon as possible.

It is also a fact that as the population increases we will need more prison spaces, but we cannot go down the road of permanently building prisons and incarcerating people in them. I agree with the Minister that quite a large percentage of prisoners in the country probably should not be in jail. We should deal with them in some other way. The difficulty is that the non-custodial sanctions we have are pretty useless, not to put too fine a point on it, for example, the recent scandalous revelations about non-collection of fines. We have a very antiquated system of collecting fines in this country. It wastes Garda time going around begging people to keep up their instalments, etc. A much more effective way to collect fines would be to apply the attachment system to people's income, whether it is from employment, social welfare or whatever.

I have come across many cases of people, especially those in deprived areas, on fixed incomes and the elderly, who have incurred financial losses as a result of the activities of people engaged in antisocial behaviour. I would like a system to be in place whereby people who are convicted of this antisocial behaviour, whether they are fined, or an attachment order or whatever is made against them, that this be directly related to compensating those people for the losses they have suffered. Some of those convicted are underage. They do not have any income and are not even old enough to be on social welfare. In some, though not all, of those cases, the parents of those kids have made no attempt whatsoever to control their children's behaviour. In those situations, if that can be established, I would not mind parents being called upon to pay the appropriate compensation.

The Minister for Justice, Deputy Jim O'Callaghan, has made a very good start in his job. The feedback on him is extremely good throughout the country. I wish him the very best. I am confident that he will continue as he started.

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