Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)

I welcome the Bill and commend the great work of the members of An Garda Síochána and those officers who work in the Criminal Assets Bureau.

It is important that we tackle criminals at source. The best way to do this is by tackling the proceeds of crime. We welcome that the turnaround time will be reduced from seven years to two years. This is something for which we in Aontú have for quite some time. I ask the Minister to please ensure that we try to reinvest this money in the communities involved and in An Garda Síochána.

An Garda Síochána is really struggling in Mayo. I recently spoke to a garda in Castlebar Garda Station who told me when members of An Garda Síochána are attending court or out sick, the station cannot function on occasion. In the past three years, my constituency of Mayo has received just one new garda recruit. I spoke to the Garda Commissioner last year. He told me about the number of D19 transfer requests from gardaí. These are, in the main, young people from Mayo, Roscommon and Galway who are working in Dublin and who are seeking to relocate back to Mayo or other counties. They cannot do so because, as the Commissioner stated, An Garda Síochána just does not have the manpower in Dublin to allow this to happen. Dublin is being prioritised in that sense, while Mayo and other counties in the west are being left without gardaí.

It is important that we address the issues relating to An Garda Síochána and tackle the problems around morale and bureaucratic practices. The new geographical units are not working. The regions are far too large and this is causing a massive deterioration in terms of the type of proactive policing practices that have built up since the foundation of the State. Deputy Tóibín and Aontú have long argued that money should be recouped and ringfenced for An Garda Síochána. It is important the Minister tackles the issues relating to the force. Being a garda used to be an intergenerational job. It was a job that a father would pass on to his son. Indeed, three generations of some families have served in the Garda. That link has been broken. It was broken before the Minister's time. He is going to have a significant job to do to address this. The truth is that fathers are no longer passing the baton on to their sons. In fact, they are telling them to get out of the force.

I know gardaí who are seeking to relocate back to Mayo and because that request cannot be facilitated, they are leaving the force. They cannot afford to live in Dublin. They are young people who are happy to continue to be gardaí, but not happy to continue to work in the capital and therefore they are willing to go back to work on farms, in pubs or in shops and leave An Garda Síochána as a result. The Minister needs to work on this. There are hundreds of applications, or D19 requests, which cannot be facilitated through no fault of the gardaí. It is the fault of the Government and the Minister's predecessors who reduced An Garda Síochána to the difficulties it is facing with bureaucratic practices and the lack of proactive policing that is now happening.

Gardaí tell me that being in An Garda Síochána used to be a job where people were out on the street tackling criminals but more often than not now, it is a job where they are tied up in knots behind screens because of the level of accountability in the job. I know it is true because I was recently out on a bank holiday weekend, one of the busiest weekends of the year, and there were no gardaí to be seen on the street. That is reflective of where we are at the moment.

I ask the Minister to ensure the issues in the force are addressed and that the money is used to tackle those issues and support An Garda Síochána.

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