Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

——anyone to be under any illusion. The CAB operates throughout the country. I know it operates in my own constituency. Operation Platinum took place in County Mayo in 2008 whereby the CAB, working with local gardaí, searched a considerable number of properties and made some very significant seizures. That operation is ongoing. Again, this is because of the profilers we have put in place. There are a number of full-time asset profilers in Limerick who are in constant contact with CAB officers in Dublin. There is a continuing operation in Limerick and that has been the case since the CAB was formed. The bureau now has 90 asset profilers throughout the country who feed information into headquarters.

The Government is criticised right, left and centre. I had to make a decision in my Department going into 2009 concerning the contracting Exchequer situation, with a significant reduction in the resources in comparison with the previous year. I decided to do two things. First, I decided that, as a principle, I would concentrate on tackling crime. I did this some months ago long before any of the current problems and it was my first and foremost priority. When we were doing our Estimates, I read in newspapers that there would be a freeze on Garda recruitment. I decided, and told my Department officials, that whatever I did, I did not want to go back to a situation where we would reduce the numbers of gardaí on the street. That is why the numbers of gardaí on the street will rise from 14,200 to 14,900. Despite the difficult financial circumstances in which I found myself, I decided we would have more gardaí on the streets. For years, we have heard that too many gardaí are working behind desks. Civilianisation of the Garda system has increased by 60% in the past two years and we now have between 2,000 and 2,500 civilians working with the Garda Síochána to relieve its workload.

I had to make a decision on whether to freeze Garda recruitment. While I have been criticised for my decision to significantly reduce funding for some of the softer areas in the Department, I speak for all political parties when I state that it is much better to continue to increase the number of gardaí on the streets than to return to a time when Garda numbers declined because recruitment ceased and retiring gardaí were not replaced. It must be accepted that our streets are much better policed than they were a number of years ago.

I decided to increase funding for the Criminal Assets Bureau by 20% or €1.5 million. The outturn for the Garda overtime budget this year was €108 million. Next year, a reduced sum of €80 million will be available for Garda overtime. I accept this will cause difficulties because overtime is always required due to the nature of policing and the need to respond to incidents as they occur. I informed the Garda Commissioner two or three months ago that he had to ring-fence €21 million of the overtime budget, €1 million more than in the previous year, for Operation Anvil, which is specifically designed to pursue organised crime in Limerick, Dublin and elsewhere.

The Government should be given some credit. While decisions regarding funding for other areas in the Department may be criticised, my foremost priority, one which I believe is shared by all Members, is to keep gardaí on the streets. For this reason, I concentrated on maintaining Garda numbers. The results of this approach are evident from the figures. As a result of the efforts of the Garda in recent years, homicide offences have decreased dramatically, falling by 56.7%, in the third quarter of this year and 44.9% year on year.

Garda numbers in Limerick have increased by 12% in the past year, taking the overall figure from 422 to 474. When Mr. John Fitzgerald, who leads the regeneration project in Limerick, commenced his work he asked for an additional 100 gardaí. Garda numbers in the city increased by 95 and by 43% since 2003. I understand the city has more gardaí per capita than any other area outside Dublin.

Since its inception in 2005, Operation Anvil, which is specifically designed to pursue gangs in Limerick and elsewhere, has resulted in 120 arrests for murder, 3,600 arrests for burglary, the seizure of 2,250 firearms, 57,406 drug searches, the seizure of 20,770 vehicles and the recovery of property worth €31.1 million. Outside Dublin, 21,500 arrests were made and 900 firearms seized under Operation Anvil during the same period. Since 2005, an astonishing number of checkpoints — 102,000 — have been performed under Operation Anvil in the Dublin region alone. Several months ago, when the Estimates were being prepared, I decided to ring-fence a large sum for Operation Anvil to ensure that a substantial part of the overtime allocation was not used for any other purpose. That remains the Government's priority.

I will address some of the issues raised in both Houses in the context of the awful tragedy that took place in Limerick. Calls have been made regarding mandatory sentences for murder. Mandatory life sentences are already imposed on conviction for murder. The trend in recent yeas has been for life sentence prisoners to serve longer sentences. The average length of a life sentence is 15 years whereas it was only 7.7 years ten or 15 years ago. Clearly, therefore, those who receive a life sentence today will spend much longer in prison than would have been the case had they been convicted some years ago. It has never been the practice of Ministers for Justice, nor will it become practice while I am in office, to permit anyone involved in organised crime who is convicted of murder to be released after a short time. Such persons will not be allowed to leave prison before 15 years have been served.

Some Members have called for the establishment of a special Garda unit for Limerick. The new regional response unit was first established in the southern region, of which Limerick is part. Many people indicated that 24-hour surveillance is required in Limerick. In recent years, 24-hour covert and overt surveillance has been carried out in the city and these practices will continue. The emergency response unit works in the city with the divisional teams operating in the area of drugs and other crime areas.

Calls have been made to appoint a special assistant commissioner for Limerick. The assistant commissioner for the southern region, which includes Limerick, is fully involved in tackling crime in the city. Designating the destinations of assistant commissioners is a matter for the Garda Commissioner. The Commissioner indicated yesterday during a meeting with the Taoiseach and me that he is satisfied with the Garda resources available in Limerick. I reiterate that Garda numbers in Limerick have probably increased more dramatically than anywhere else.

Members referred to the idea of allowing the opinion of a Garda chief superintendent to be sufficient to charge a gang member. In cases involving the Offences Against the State Act, the courts have already held that the opinion of a chief superintendent is not conclusive and it is a matter for the court to decide how much weight such an opinion should be given. It is often said that we made such provision in cases involving the Provisional IRA and other terrorists. Once Provisional IRA members recognised the courts and gave evidence that they were not members of a proscribed organisation, the court ignored the evidence of a chief superintendent.

Case law and strong legal advice suggests that allowing as evidence an opinion of a chief superintendent that a person is a member of a criminal organisation or gang would amount to a statement, without evidence, that the accused is guilty, would lead to evidence as to bad character of the accused and would be so prejudicial that it could not be countered by any direction by a judge to the jury. In effect, such a provision would be unconstitutional as it would not allow a fair trial.

Allowing that the Special Criminal Court is a court without a jury, normal murder trials are by jury. In the event that legislation were introduced to permit a chief superintendent to give an opinion, any chief superintendent who did so would be required to face cross-examination, during which he would have to give the reasons he arrived at his opinion. He would then, in effect, have to state the terms of bad character against the accused before the latter is found guilty. The courts have decided and legal advice has shown that to do so would be ultra vires vis-À-vis the Constitution in that it would not be fair procedure because persons are entitled to be presumed innocent until found guilty by a court or jury and are, therefore, entitled to their good name. The proposal to permit chief superintendents to give an opinion in such cases has been examined many times by this Government and previous Governments and has been found to be in conflict with the Constitution and contrary to the concept of a fair trial. The taking of evidence by videotape is already allowed by section 57 of the Criminal Justice Act 2007 and the Garda is at an advanced stage in implementing this provision, which is very complex. It involves the taking of evidence by videotape and having it in transcript form as well.

The legislation in relation to covert surveillance should be introduced earlier. This legislation is extremely complex. It is about the Garda's ability to enter private property to install bugging devices. For years the Garda has been operating intrusive surveillance and that has been very beneficial to it. This legislation will be more or less the same as the legislation we had in 1993, interception legislation, where phone calls and postal packages may be intercepted, subject to very strict conditions. That legislation will merely give a statutory grounding to what is already being done by the Garda.

On the right to silence, a number of people said publicly that needs to be changed. We changed the law on the right to silence in July last year. That was recommended by the Hogan commission on balance in the criminal law, a report which I suggest Members of the Oireachtas should read closely. I will introduce further measures in that regard to assist victims. That legislation will be brought in, hopefully, in the spring of the new year. The new law provides, on the right to silence, that inferences may be drawn at a trial where a person remains silent, when he or she is asked a question by the investigating garda. Inferences may be drawn for failure to account for marks on the body or whatever. Inferences may be drawn by failure to account for someone being in a particular place. In addition, a further provision is added in a new section, 19A, about inferences that may be drawn from failure to mention during the interview certain facts that are later relied on at trial by the defendant. Again, the right to silence has been fairly dramatically changed.

A number of Senators, particularly in the Labour Party, have raised the issue of putting the witness protection programme on a statutory basis. I asked the Garda Commissioner yesterday whether he required that. It must be remembered that the witness protection programme has been in place since 1997 and has always been properly funded by Governments since then. The Garda Commissioner is adamant that he does not want the witness protection programme on a statutory footing as that would take away the flexibility he has in relation to it. Obviously, given the types of circumstances he has in vogue to get witnesses to go forward to assist in trials, he must have that flexibility.

It has also been suggested that we should refer cases to the Special Criminal Court. Under existing law the DPP — the Garda can make application — has a right to refer trials to the Special Criminal Court without jury. He can do that only in circumstances where be believes the ordinary courts are not capable of dealing with a particular situation. The Garda Commissioner said at our meeting yesterday that if he had the same level of success in the rest of the country as he had in Limerick, he would be very happy. If one looks at the statistics in relation to a number of significant murders and serious offences, one sees the success has been greater in Limerick than anywhere else. That would effectively negate the opportunity of the DPP to refer cases to the Special Criminal Court. The people of Limerick have been very good in the response they have given to some of these more serious offences. What the Garda Commissioner, I and others were doing in the past couple of days was encouraging people to come forward, a very small element of people who clearly know what is going on, particularly in the context of a vehicle being stolen, to be used a couple of weeks later, as in the awful murder of Mr. Shane Geoghegan. There are people in this State, particularly in Limerick, who clearly know who these people are. The Garda has a very clear suspicion, as do others, of who the culprit was in this case, but suspicion is not good enough in a democracy. There must be hard evidence and that is why we have given, and will continue to give, the Garda the power it needs.

I am open to all suggestions on legislative change, but I would not want to hoodwink anyone into believing there is a quick fix to any of these issues. I will not say that by bringing in legislation we will stop all crime for the future, but it is accepted by independent academics and observers of this situation that the type of legislation we introduced in 2006-07 is very robust — it could be regarded as draconian. It is in place and very little else can be done from a legislative viewpoint, other than bringing in internment, and I am not sure whether the Irish people, or indeed the Oireachtas, would want internment or indeed whether the courts would allow it.