Frank Feighan (Fine Gael)

I also seek a debate on crime. Recently I warned against the downsizing of the number of armed gardaí from 1,600, which I feel is a fairly modest complement. When the paramilitaries were active in this State — one hopes they are now almost gone — it was unusual for anyone to fire at gardaí. Now we seem to have armed gangs, obviously connected with drugs, which seem to think they can fire at gardaí with impunity. We certainly need more armed gardaí to tackle this ever-increasing crime. My colleague, Senator McHugh, referred to young gardaí as cubs. We need more cubs to curb the number of violent pups on the street.