Maurice Hayes (Independent)

I also deplore acts of vandalism and every effort must be made to prevent them. I dissent from the view that this can only be done by an army. I have lived too long with circumstances in which soldiers are asked to do the jobs of policemen when the only thing a soldier has that a policeman does not is a gun. Do people want them to use guns? The police have far better powers at their disposal and as this is a police matter. The Garda Síochána should be given the resources it needs or made to use the resources it possesses. My experience of police forces is that it does not make as much use of its resources as it might. This is a policing matter and it would be profoundly wrong, from a political perspective, to turn it into a military one.