Frank Feighan (Fine Gael)

I too join with Senator Brian Hayes in requesting a debate on bed shortages in hospitals. Much more can be done, and it is a very serious issue. Perhaps the Leader might invite the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, to the House to discuss and tease out the best way forward.

I am very worried regarding the prime suspect in the murder of Donna Cleary. The profile in today's newspaper is of a man steadily climbing up the ranks of the criminal underworld, with access to firearms, including automatic weapons. He was moving in the same circles as dangerous young armed criminals. It is very serious, and we must ask ourselves what kind of young men we are producing in this country. It is akin to the cast of a Quentin Tarantino film.

I am extremely concerned, and I support Senator O'Toole's call for an amendment to the Offences against the State Act 1939. We cannot stand idly by when, in every housing estate of every city and large town, there are young men of this sort, fuelled and high on alcohol, cocaine and heroin. If we do not act, Quentin Tarantino might as well move here, since he will have plenty of real-life actors to portray those in his scripts. We have once again highlighted levels of cocaine abuse in the country, and if Nigerian gangs introduce crack cocaine to Dublin we will have to have armed response units in every Garda station in the city. We must act now before it is too late.