Frank Feighan (Fine Gael)

I agree with Senator Glynn that there is a crime spree involving eastern European gangs. However, the Garda does not have the resources to deal with this problem. I know that from my experience of it having taken more than two weeks for a specialist from the Garda to take photographic stills from my computer.

We read in the newspapers in recent days of a young man having been shot dead in Clonmel, Denis Donaldson having been shot dead in Donegal and a young Lithuanian man having been killed after being dragged 100 yards under a van while trying to stop the siphoning of diesel from his truck. The Garda does not have the resources to deal with such so-called petty crime. Until the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform introduces the 2,000 extra gardaí promised, these petty crimes will go unnoticed.

We should invite the Minister to the House to debate the ever increasing level of crime, often violent crime, to which we have become immune. If three of four different types of shootings were happening ten years ago, we would have been in uproar but now we seem to pass them off willy-nilly. Something must be done about the ever increasing crime in our country and the only way to do that is to ensure that the 2,000 extra gardaí are recruited.