Michael McCarthy (Labour)

I refer to the viciousness of the criminal gangs here. The murders last night were atrocious. It is a miracle that the teenager in the back of the car escaped with his life. We wish that youngster a full recovery. It is appalling that there is such scant regard for human life in this day and age. It is astounding that some prisoners have access to mobile telephones and blackBerries while in some parts of the country some Garda stations do not even have e-mail facilities. For the Garda to detect crime and secure convictions it is essential that every resource it needs is supplied. I support the comments of the Garda Commissioner to that effect on the radio earlier today. We must bear in mind that at the end of the day a family has lost two sons and men and women who have lost two brothers. It is an appalling tragedy. I object to the use of the term "known to the Garda". We know the scale of corporate crime during the boom. We know the people who have bankrupted the State who literally walk the streets as free people and they will never be termed "known to the Garda". That does not lessen the crime of robbing two young men of their lives and putting a family into turmoil and grief and the tit for tat killings that may follow as somebody else, somebody who is completely innocent, may be caught in that cross-fire. It is imperative that the resources the commissioner speaks of so often are provided to him and the force to enable them to do an effective job and put this type of scum behind bars where it belongs.