Joe McHugh (Fine Gael)

I will outline a snapshot of what appeared in the newspapers over the weekend: terror attacks, a man attacked at home, an armed robbery, theft and burglaries under investigation, bicycles stolen, an armed gang robbed a shop owner, an attempted car theft, a house ransacked, a windscreen smashed, a pier damaged, windows smashed, a vehicle broken into, cinema theft, an attempted break in, the theft of a home-made trailer, a car burnt out, a house broken into, a rural pub burgled again, an architects office targeted and a shooting of a young man.

This is not an international snapshot, we are not talking about the Gaza Strip or a major city, we are talking about Donegal. These stories appeared in the local newspapers in Donegal last weekend detailing activities within a seven-day period. These incidents are mainly happening in Border areas of the county. It is evident that the gardaí in the region are underresourced. I have mentioned before that we are situated beside the fourth largest city in Ireland, Derry, and we do not take that into consideration when deploying Garda resources.

The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform must address this issue. People are living in fear and do not feel safe in their own homes. We must do something about it. We are enacting legislation that will criminalise farmers and fishermen for minor misdemeanours while 29% of crime in Donegal is undetected. If we do not do something about this, people will take the law into their own hands in Border areas and we do not want that to happen.