Feargal Quinn (Independent)

I will cause a minor upset for the Minister, although he is welcome here. I accept what Senator O'Donovan has said in that the Minister often attends the House personally rather than sending a Minister of State to deputise for him. I was impressed by what Senator Regan said because I have a problem with rushed legislation of any kind. It seems that when we have such legislation, we must revisit it because we did not cover the matter well enough initially. Yet again we are being subjected to the undignified task of cleaning up the mess the Government has left behind.

I object in principle to emergency legislation, but in this particular case I have a more fundamental objection. I call into question not the corrective measure before us — I have no doubt it is correct — but the original Act whose purpose it is to repair. In my time in the House I have taken part in many debates on crime, but I am now beginning to wonder whether the way we approach this question is creating results that end up being counterproductive.

It is easy for people in our position to create public hysteria about crime, or add to it when it is created by others. The ordinary citizen, quite reasonably and understandably, is always concerned about the level of crime. Listening to the radio today, one could hear how concerned people are. It is one of the few hot button issues that is virtually guaranteed to provoke a response from ordinary citizens. Since politicians and especially journalists know that, however, they are all too likely to pander to ordinary people's concerns rather than addressing the issue directly.

In the case of the media, their sin — I am happy to say I think it is one — is the way they present crime stories as if they were much more common than they are. They rarely point out that even with the dramatic increase in violent crime we have certainly had in recent years and of which we have heard a great deal today, nonetheless, Ireland still has a relatively low level of criminal activity by international standards.

Too many politicians yield to the temptation to snatch a quick headline by playing up a crime story, but what concerns me more is the way the crime argument is presented in terms of political debate. No matter what party is in power, it is always under constant attack by the Opposition, although I accept that Senator Regan did not attack the Government on this occasion. The Opposition usually presents the latest crime situation as a total failure by the Government of the day which, it claims, either does not recognise the seriousness of the situation or is indifferent to it. In addition, the Opposition often suggests the Government is incompetent in dealing with the situation.

The motion we considered here this day last week fell neatly into that pattern. It could be seen as the usual political argy-bargy, until we look at the effects it often has. Since Governments of all colours invariably turn out to have thin skins, they react to criticism of this kind by becoming overly defensive. Governments invariably find themselves tending to talk down the incidence of crime, while at the same time Opposition parties find themselves talking it up. They invariably tend to be overly confident in the steps they are taking to combat crime and present a rosy scenario of the future as they see it. The Minister did not do so today, however, and I am not talking about it in that context. Rather, I am using this opportunity to comment on the general point.

The amendment to the motion that was before us last week also falls neatly into this pattern. It does not, however, stop with talking, and this is my main problem with the Act that we are amending here. Governments have the power to act, and sometimes they use that power for the wrong reasons. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that some, if not most, of the recent legislative action on the crime front has been driven not by an honest attempt to cope with a real-life situation on the ground, but by political considerations.

It is part of this yah-booh political shadow boxing that goes on all the time, and of which last week's debate was a part. Too often the Government produces criminal justice legislation not because it is really needed but because it thinks it will convince people that it is on top of the situation, and doing everything possible and necessary to address the problem.

Hence my belief that creating hysteria about crime tends to generate the wrong response. All criminal justice legislation is, to some extent at least, an invasion of individual liberties, and the question we legislators should ask ourselves is whether the benefits to society as a whole justify the damage we do to the freedom of individuals. We cannot answer that question the right way if the motive driving the legislation is aimed not at a crime problem, but at a political problem that we have created by the way we approach the issue.

This is not to suggest that crime is not a serious challenge about which we should be complacent, or over-confident of the means we employ to deal with it. We need to find a better way of discussing it than we do at present because that approach inevitably results in hasty and disproportionate legislation.

My words are based on last week's debate rather than on what is taking place today. I understand the Minister's point which he has explained well and I support what he is trying to do but I am unhappy at the way we handle crime in these Houses.