John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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The next Topical Issue is shared by Deputies Quinlivan and Sheehan.

Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)
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Both of us are united in our concern about the volatility of the situation in Limerick as it pertains to serious crime and the absence of an adequate and visible policing presence to tackle this.

Limerick is a wonderful place and a city that has come far since the dark says of 20 years ago, yet the lack of an active and visible policing presence has become a defining feature of our city. In a recent reply to a parliamentary question, it was revealed that of the 120 gardaí who attested from Templemore this month, only two were assigned to Limerick. That is 1.6% of the total number. Seventy four gardaí form the same cohort were assigned to Dublin.

Limerick and the mid-west are consistently overlooked when it comes to the assignment of gardaí. The model for assigning gardaí is failing Limerick. It does not consider the actual level of need in the city. Limerick has nine of the 17 economic blackspots in the city. It is the home of St. Mary's Park, which is a wonderful community but also the most deprived community in the State. The residents of this community do not deserve to live in the shadow of a minority of drug-dealing vultures who peddle crack cocaine, an evil insidious drug.

Gardaí had relatively successful operations - Operation Capóg and Operation Feabhsaigh - to tackle this but these have ceased as Garda resources have been diverted to the south side of the city in order to tackle a wave of violence in Ballinacurra Weston. Make no mistake, we have a feud again in Limerick. We have had shootings, pipe bomb attacks and fire bombings. It is a miracle nobody has been killed. The Commissioner's restrictions on overtime are a complete disgrace. He does not have a clue what is going on in Limerick. This is not something minor that involves antisocial behaviour. We need at least ten additional gardaí in the next passing out from Templemore. I ask the Minister to intervene directly before someone is killed.

I also raise the need for funding approval for the CCTV system in Moyross. This is vital. An ask and a business case has gone to the Department of justice and I plead with the Minister to push for the approval of this as a matter of urgency. An application for a CCTV scheme for the community of Garryowen has been with the Commissioner for over two months and a sign-off is urgently needed on that.

Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
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No disrespect to the Minister of State but I am really disappointed that nobody from the Department of justice is present. This is a really important issue as my colleague has outlined. I will preface my comments by saying the Government really needs to intervene here. It needs to commit to a fully resourced Garda operation targeting drug dealing and feuding in order that hardworking people in Limerick feel safe and secure in their homes, which some of them do not feel at the moment. Many people are extremely frightened and need to be reassured and made safe in their homes and communities.

The scale of drug dealing in parts of Limerick city is worse than ever. It is off the scale. It is a miracle nobody has been killed in the gang feud that is going on across our city. Gardaí have said that, not me. Too many Limerick communities feel abandoned. In recent weeks we have had shootings and petrol bomb attacks in the Ballinacurra Weston, Southill, Garryowen, Thomondgate and King's Island areas of our great city. Recently, I wrote to both the Garda Commissioner and the Minister for justice seeking additional resources for the Garda in Limerick. These resources are needed to combat the ongoing sale of drugs, especially crack cocaine, and gang feuding across Limerick. Hardworking families, pensioners and children living in these communities deserve to live securely in their homes without the presence of drug gangs operating openly and arrogantly. The sale of crack cocaine is pure evil. It has a devastating impact not only on the drug users but on their families and the wider community. Crack cocaine, one of the most destructive and addictive drugs, is peddled to the most desperate of our citizens. There are reports of children selling crack cocaine and I am on the public record as saying that previously. There are several criminal gangs in our city that cause mayhem and destroy lives. They often act like they own the areas. They think they do.

Previous Garda operations in Limerick such as Operation Capóg and others, when resourced, have been successful but when the resources are removed, the criminality returns even worse. We cannot allow crime to spread and we cannot allow these gangs to drag more young people into this. Often, the communities I have talked about have been plagued by criminal gangs who seem to operate without sanction. They feel they are untouchable. These communities see little or no Garda response across Limerick. Many communities have long been left without a community Garda. We must enhance community safety by implementing a comprehensive method to address crime and support local policing efforts. The gardaí in Limerick are well led and when they have sufficient Garda numbers and adequate resources, they can keep all of our communities safe. That is a task of Government and it needs to deliver the resources our gardaí need.

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I thank both Deputies for raising this cross-party Topical Issue which I am taking on behalf of the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan.

I thank them for raising this issue. I was in Limerick city only earlier this week with Senator Maria Byrne and the issue of crime was raised with me by Limerick Chamber of Commerce. Like all decent citizens, I strongly condemn gangland criminality and, in particular, intimidation and threats using firearms and other lethal weapons. People have a right to live safely and feel safe in their homes and communities, and this Government is committed to the principle that everyone, wherever they live in Ireland, should be safe and feel safe. An Garda Síochána has advised the Minister, Deputy O’Callaghan, that it is carrying out a range of high-visibility and covert operations on an ongoing basis to support public safety in Limerick. Operation Croí has been in place in Limerick city centre, targeting antisocial behaviour and associated offences, including drug-related and traffic-related offences. This Garda operation assists in targeting criminals and the sale and supply of drugs in Limerick city centre. Operation Feabhsaigh was initiated in September 2023 and it has two key priorities, the first of which is law enforcement and crime prevention at King's Island historic quarter, which includes city centre locations. The second priority is dealing with the sale and supply of drugs, open drug use, chronic antisocial behaviour, aggressive begging and crime in St. Mary's Park. Limerick is one of three pilot sites for An Garda Síochána’s front-line deployment of body-worn cameras. The use of body-worn cameras is intended to increase public confidence in policing responses by enabling Gardaí to record incidents as they occur and provide evidence of how a particular incident unfolded, thereby providing greater transparency, promoting accountability and deterring criminal activity.

We know we cannot solely police our way out of these situations. The best way to tackle the safety issues communities are facing is through An Garda Síochána and other State services partnering with the community to implement tailored solutions. The local community safety partnerships, LCSPs, which will operate at each local authority level, are building upon the good work undertaken through the joint policing committees; JPCs, as we would have known them. The objective of the partnerships is to bring the relevant bodies, including An Garda Síochána, together with communities in a collaborative manner by focusing on the concerns identified and prioritised by local people. Each newly established LCSP will be required to develop and implement its own tailored community safety plan and will take a strategic approach to its work so that issues arising can be dealt with in a co-ordinated manner and addressed collectively by relevant service providers in partnership with the local community.

The Policing, Security and Community Safety Act 2024, which was commenced on 2 April 2025, also provides for area-based neighbourhood community safety forums to facilitate a tailored, targeted and time-limited approach where issues of concern are arising in a more localised format. The Government’s commitment to An Garda Síochána and tackling crime is clear from the allocation of the highest Garda Vote in history, €2.48 billion, in budget 2025. This Government will continue to provide An Garda Síochána with the resources it needs to ensure communities across Limerick and around Ireland are safe and feel safe.

Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)
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I thank the Minister of State for her reply. First, regarding the LCSP, I sat on the joint policing committee. The joint policing committee has not sat since I was a member of it, which was in May 2024. It is simply not acceptable. What I am looking for is a commitment that the Minister of State will take up the substance of the issues I raised with the Commissioner. We need at least ten additional gardaí. It is not me saying that; it is the chief superintendent. When the Minister of State talks about not being able to police our way out of this, I agree with her. That is why we need to see a commitment that the money in the social intervention fund through regeneration will be maintained for the next number of years. The fact of the matter is this situation is akin to the way it was in the early 2000s and we need a similar level of urgency as there was between 2008 and 2010 when we stamped this out. We are going backwards and I am literally terrified that somebody is going to be murdered in Limerick again soon.

Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
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I was really disappointed with the Minister of State's response. There was nothing new that we did not know about before we came in here tonight. It pains me when I talk about these issues in the city of Limerick that I love but it pains me more to see ordinary working families being abandoned by the State. In 2008, Limerick had 92 community gardaí; we now have 30. In 2008, John Fitzgerald commissioned a report which dealt with the policing regeneration programme. He said we needed 100 extra gardaí and a new superintendent. We got 100 gardaí and 99 retired so we got one. We got one garda - that is what we got. About a week ago there was a petrol bomb attack in an area of the city. It took two hours for a Garda response to come to that, even though it was on social media for an hour before the gardaí came out to it. We never got the gardaí we were promised and communities have been left abandoned. As I have said, crack cocaine did not just appear in Limerick; organised gangs brought it to Limerick. I have raised this in the Dáil for the last three or four years. They targeting the most vulnerable people in the State. I agree with the Minister of State that we need a co-ordinated response to this and that is what Operation Copóg was. We need a version of that again. We need to put the resources in. When the Minister sees the new recruits coming out of Templemore, Limerick has to be to looked at. We cannot go by the size of the population. We have to look at the problems we have in north inner city Dublin and parts of Cork city but Limerick city in particular needs to make sure we get a fair share of those gardaí. It cannot just be based on population because that is simply not going to work. Communities are abandoned and it is not good enough.

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputies for raising all of those issues. Regarding the joint policing committees - I too sat on my JPC - as the Deputies will be aware, they are being replaced by the LCSPs. We will get further information on that-----

Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)
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They still have not started.

Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
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They are not there yet.

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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-----but that is the latest information we have in relation to that.

Deputy Quinlivan raised community gardaí and the need to invest in them. I absolutely hear him and will certainly bring that back to the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, on whose behalf I am taking this Topical Issue. At the end of April this year, there were 585 Garda members of all ranks assigned to the Limerick division. I am told that is an increase of almost 6% since the end of the previous decade.

Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
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That is not true. It is down 5% in the last five years.

Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Let the Minister of State respond please.

Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
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It is wrong.

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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According to the figures that have been provided to me by the Department of Justice, there was a 6% increase in the ten years previous to 2025. In addition to the specific measures I mentioned which are taking place in Limerick - I have gone through the different Garda operations - a number of key actions have been taken as part of our plan to tackle organised crime and the crime groups behind those types of acts. They include legislation that has been brought through this House, for example to increase the maximum sentence for conspiracy to murder from ten years to life in prison; to tackle those who are directly engaged in gangland and drug-related crime; to enact the Criminal Justice (Engagement of Children in Criminal Activity) Act to criminalise the grooming of children into a life of crime; to draft new laws which will provide for the use of biometric technologies, including facial recognition technology; to investigate certain drug offences; and to roll out a support programme to break the link between gangs and the children they recruit. Earlier this year, the Minister of State, Deputy Niall Collins, and the Department of Justice launched a new merged and expanded youth diversion project in Rathkeale and west Limerick, along with the opening of two new projects in nearby east Clare and north Tipperary. We will achieve the target set out in the youth justice strategy of full national coverage of youth diversion projects. These are also an important part of what the Deputy spoke about earlier in relation to the social aspects of this and the need to invest not just in policing strategies but also in services underneath them. From the perspective of criminal assets, there is legislation to strengthen the State's ability to seize criminal assets and to target the proceeds of crime as well and this will also benefit Limerick.