Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael)

Two potent images this week have struck us. The first was yesterday's of the queues for food in Dublin. ICTU man and IBEC man have done well while breakfast-roll man and woman, parents of that child with autism or parents trying to care for the elderly, have been victimised by the Government. I challenge IBEC to live on the minimum wage for the week and let us see how we get on. We must never forget the vulnerable and that is what IBEC has done this morning.

I join with Senator Donohoe in asking for an urgent debate on national security, Northern Ireland and, especially, law and order. I do so under two categories. We have become complacent about the North. We have seen a regeneration of activity by dissidents who do no service to all of us who are constitutional republicans and want to see peace and harmony in our country. We are losing the mindset where we must reinforce and support the Garda.

Second, we can never condone or allow people to have bomb-making facilities in any city or part of the country. It is wrong and we must send these people a strong message that they are not welcome in this society and must be taken out of society and incarcerated because they are doing a disservice to all of us.

I ask the Acting Leader to bring in the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy Dermot Ahern, and the Minister of State at the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs with responsibility for drugs, Deputy Curran, to have a debate because gangland war has gone on for too long. We are painting a picture in the media, we are closing our eyes to it and we are not tackling it head on. It is time we got serious. It is time we took in hand the people who are doing this to society and our communities, from the small hamlets to the big cities. We are sleepwalking into trouble and the Minister and the Minister of State must come into this House and say, give us the answers and let us go out and take it on. I am tried of people coming in here and rattling on.