Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)

My understanding is that nothing is holding this up. It is just a matter of getting it into play as quickly as possible. I understand the process for representation by Tusla, the Garda, the HSE and the local authorities; that is fairly easy. I am talking about the other bodies and organisations, such as community residents associations. How exactly will that work? There is a huge body of work that needs to be done. I welcome that the Minister is talking about the possibility of a review. Many of us believe it was useful when there were joint policing committees. In Louth, joint policing committees were able to operate on the basis of Dundalk and north Louth, Drogheda and south Louth, and Ardee and mid-Louth.

We need to tackle those issues from organised crime right down into chaos and so on. I welcome what was said earlier about the Criminal Assets Bureau. We all know the world we live in. We need to look at the very particular issue we have at this point in time with organised crime and drugs. When certain people have had houses taken off them, they just regard it as the cost of doing business and they are back in operation again. We need a harm-reduction methodology but we also need to give police the ability to police.

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