Pearse Doherty (Sinn Fein)

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. This matter follows on from a spate of crime which has hit County Donegal for a number of weeks, and I will give some details in regard to what has happened. I call for additional gardaí to be deployed, in particular to man some of the rural Garda stations which, most of the time, are only open for three hours during the day and for a limited number of hours at weekends, if at all.

I expect the Minister of State will read out statistics on how many extra gardaí have been put on patrol and on the increase in the number of gardaí in County Donegal and will talk about the Border and the fact the threat no longer exists. I am not interested, so he can skip all of that and get straight to the point of how many extra gardaí the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform will deploy in County Donegal.

A couple of weeks ago, a person wearing a balaclava attempted to rob a young lad working in a petrol station in my home town. He put a knife to his throat. When the owners of the facility tried to telephone the gardaí, there was nobody in their local station. When they tried to phone the next local station, there was nobody there either. They were unable to get anybody in either station for two hours and the phones were not diverted to the next manned station, Glenties. The following week, in a part of Donegal a few miles over the road, another petrol station was robbed and again, violence was used. The young lad working in that station told his friend to run up to the Garda station, but it was not open. When the owner of the premises phoned Glenties Garda station, which is permanently manned, the garda on duty told him she was working on her own and would have to phone him back. This is the problem facing us.

There have not been just two incidents. There has been a spate of incidents throughout the county. Three petrol stations in a ten-mile radius in my area were hit over the past three weeks by violent crime. People running businesses are afraid they will be attacked. I know these incidents do not only happen in Donegal, but we are not as used to them as places where such incidents have been occurring for years. The problem is that people feel their businesses are vulnerable and isolated.

In the residential area there have also been problems. There has been a spate of house robberies in estates such as St. Johnston's. There have been tiger kidnappings where people have been kidnapped and forced to go to ATM machines or business premises to withdraw cash. In Inishowen, there have been 15 break-ins of residential homes since 3 February. The situation is so bad that people are now patrolling the area themselves. It has been reported in the local papers that sales from the local co-op of pick-axes or any tools with a shaft have increased dramatically.

It is very important we support the Garda in the effort to deal with the spate of crime and that we give confidence back to the community that gardaí are best placed, able and capable of dealing with it. We must deal with the isolation and vulnerability felt by both the business and residential communities of Donegal.

If the Minister of State does not have a good message for me, will he ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform whether there is any possibility of an increase in Garda numbers in Donegal? I ask in particular that Garda stations that are currently only open for three hours each morning be opened full-time.