Brendan Ryan (Labour)

The issue raised by my two colleagues is perhaps the most serious that has confronted this country for quite some time. I want to elaborate a little on how we need to take this issue seriously. I do not want to make a political speech. I will not mention the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform but I want to remind this House of what it was like, say, 20 years ago at the height of paramilitary activity. Those attending meetings connected in any way with Northern Ireland would be regarded as quasi-subversive or sympathetic and would be visited by at least two members of the Garda Síochána. It appeared there were limitless resources to keep an eye on and follow those sorts of people, whether the threat was real or imaginary. In my case I was at the receiving end of a few of those people when they were interested in what I was doing. We appeared to have limitless resources then but now we have communities in Dublin like the one mentioned earlier terrified of armed criminals, and the Garda Commissioner says he does not have the resources to make life difficult for the people who are making the lives of a whole community difficult. What has happened? We are richer than we were 20 years ago. We have more resources, yet we are told we do not have the Garda resources to deal with this problem. It is time we had a serious debate in this House about the way we deal with armed crime, and the same sort of focus should be on it. Otherwise, people will conclude that armed violence which threatens the State is taken far more seriously than armed violence which only threatens ordinary people. It is up to the Oireachtas to make a clear statement that the type of activity that is taking place in our capital city will stop.

I want to raise one other matter, namely what happened to the three US citizens in Gaza yesterday. It was wrong but it is worth reminding the House that they were not the first US casualties in Palestine. Rachel Corry, a US citizen, was murdered by an Israeli bulldozer less than a year ago and nobody in the world took it too seriously. The powers that be, the European Union and the United States, must resume a position of clear balance on the Palestinian issue and stop blaming a non-existent authority for the prevalence of crime. Having destroyed the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian security forces, they then turn around and say it is their fault. What do we want? Do we want civil war between the Palestinians? It is time the world stood back and said this problem has to be solved by serious compromise on both sides, not by continuing demands for further compromise by the Palestinian people.