Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

On the contrary, I always tell people to read these things carefully and not draw rash conclusions from them. I am aware, however, that crime sells newspapers. That is an immutable fact in public life and it has been the case as long as newspapers have been produced. A good crime story is better even than a corruption in politics story. Crime stories sell newspapers.

I am not naive enough to expect that a report that sells newspapers will be written in a way that suggests we should all be at ease. It is much easier to convey to the public the notion that crime is on the increase, that we should all be scared and that there is a real problem in society. That is a much easier message to get across than one to the effect that crime levels have improved slightly over the past quarter and that there is less crime.

I will give a prime example to the House. Incidents of murder have declined consistently in the period since I was appointed Minister, although I am not claiming responsibility for that. There has been a constant decline in the number of murders committed but one would not know that from reading many newspapers or listening to programmes on radio or television. They report that there is a murder a week and that the situation is out of control. That is simply not true. We are coming to the end of this year and the figures will reflect that there were fewer murders this year than last year, and there were fewer murders last year than the year before. That is a fact but the newspapers do not want to report that. There will not be a headline to the effect that the murder rate has dropped. It will not be done, but if they sift through the tables of figures I produce every quarter and see that the number of rapes increased in one quarter by X amount, from one figure to another, and that it represents a 40% increase, the banner headline will read, "Rape Spirals Upwards", or something like that.

I am not naive and I know what newspapers do but in this House at the very least we should be conscious of the fact that, for example, the incidence of murder has been declining for two years. There is no question of me spinning; those are facts. That is one figure in which everybody must have some faith. Gardaí cannot turn a blind eye to murders and so on. It is interesting that, despite an increase in population, increased urbanisation and the increased availability of firearms, the number of murders has fallen over the past two years. Nobody will report this because it does not sell newspapers.