Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this motion and commend Deputy Gogarty and his staff on putting it together.

It often baffles me that when we had 9,000 and 10,000 gardaí on the streets or in the total force, there were local Garda stations. If anyone said they were not doing much, they knew everything that was going on in the area. They did not have to be taking out the book doing this one, that one and the other one. They were able to keep manners on the area in their own way. Sadly, it is gone now with the phone straight into the face if there is a garda anywhere the minute they do anything. That is not acceptable, to be quite frank about it. One time, if there was a robbery in a local rural area and if something was stolen or anything went wrong or if there was a bit of a scrap, the local garda sorted it out. They did not have to be going to the DPP many times; they would have it sorted out in a matter of hours. We have lost that. The change was done over the last seven or eight years. It was not in the Minister's time, in fairness. It was done before this. The way it went was they decided to start closing local Garda stations. As I always say, the local garda was always able to find out what was going on. When a robbery or something happened, what we call a crow on the wire gave the information and the local garda would know who was giving the information. We have lost all that.

Right around this country, there are youngsters flying around on these e-scooters with no insurance or anything. They can drive into anyone and there is no regulation. Where are we going with this? If we go out in a car or a tractor, we have to have insurance. These can just fly along out past you, go in through traffic and there is no regulation. I remember in the previous Dáil, there were supposed to be tags going onto repeat offenders so that it would be known where they were. Where has that gone? It seems to have disappeared. The prisons are full. There is no point in saying it. The Minister is not going to build a heap of them overnight. We understand that. Why have we not tagged these offenders with a tracker to know where they all are? It is a fairly simple thing to do. The sad part about it is that if a garda uses a baton now, he is called a criminal nearly, whereas at one time they used it and they kept manners on many a gouger who was getting out of hand and got them into line. On top of that, we need to start getting youngsters to show respect for the things we were brought up to show respect for. At the moment, as Deputy Gogarty said, there are gangs going around. Yes, we try to put in sports or youth club facilities or whatever facilities we can, but once we do that people still have to show respect. They cannot be going around in a mob around people such as the pregnant woman Deputy Gogarty mentioned or around other people. We cannot have that going on in a country.

Gardaí will not be everywhere around the place - there is no point in saying we will have them everywhere - but I remember the local garda or sergeant once being able to control the area. I know things have got more sophisticated and that there are different crimes that go on that were not investigated at one time. I understand all that but we have lost the touch of the common local knowledge. Local knowledge is what will tell you everything, from a local garda living in an area. At the moment, in my area between Headford and where I live, about 40 miles away, there will be one Garda car on at night. It does not have that resource. With the best will in the world, they cannot police an area or look after it. It is like Nanci Griffith's song "From a Distance". We knew all our gardaí one time in the area. Now, you would not have a bull's clue who is coming to you because they are coming from a different area. For the sake of the Minister's Department, we have to look outside the box. If a gang is going around, why not take the phones off them? Why not have that facility to know what is going on? Why not start laying down the law or putting tags on? It is becoming a revolving door. It is wasting serious amounts of Garda time and, as has been pointed out, gardaí are in the courts nearly all day. That is not solving anything. We need to look at that area as well. First, we need to give them whatever facilities we can to try to bring them with us, but if there are ones who are not listening or are not toeing the line, then it has to get sharper.

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