Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I express my deep regret that I posed a total of 16 questions to the Minister, who chose to ignore or did not answer ten of them. I am asking a simple question. I asked the Minister about the lack of progress with regard to the investigation into the murderers of Detective Garda Adrian Donohoe. The point I was making is that I want to see the murderers arrested and locked up tonight if possible. It is not a criticism of the Minister, but it was such a callous crime and we are being told that the Garda knows who these people are. There were 16 different articles over the weekend. I do not always get the newspapers to read and I specifically did not get them to throw at the Minister. This was not political spin by the newspapers and the rest of the media. Various journalists condemned the low morale within the Garda, the closure of Garda stations and the Garda College at Templemore and the lack of resources. That was not a Fianna Fáil issue. The Minister will also ignore at his peril the comments of the GRA and the AGSI. He cannot do this and if he does, it is at his peril. I am not being political when I say he can also ignore at his peril the very striking and powerful eulogy by the priest at the funeral of Detective Garda Donohoe.

That was not done without the prior imprimaturof his family and of the wider Garda community.

The Minister ignores at his peril the pleas of rank and file gardaí. He cannot ignore the comments made in the House on a previous occasion by Senator Sheehan to the effect that the streets of Dublin are not safe to walk on. He also cannot ignore the fact that communities and rural alliance groups are approaching Members in respect of this matter. I have never sought a public meeting in respect of the closure of rural barracks but I have attended a number of such meetings. We are not the catalyst when it comes to criticisms being made; it is community councils and, on occasion, those gardaí who work in rural stations and who are embedded in their local communities that are raising concerns.

I wish to nail a particular lie in respect of the availability of 61,000 additional Garda patrol hours. I live in a very rural area near Schull, which is on the Mizen Peninsula in west Cork, and I am not in possession of an iota of evidence from community council activists and gardaí that the closure of local stations has given rise to this extra allowance. The notion that a garda in a rural station comes to work for four hours, puts his feet up on his desk, drinks a cup of coffee and looks out the window is nonsense. Most Senators will agree that rural gardaí are involved in their communities and are members of local GAA or soccer teams. They call to the homes of elderly people to check on them and they can sometimes be seen doing work out of hours. These officers are active in the communities in which they live. I hate the fact that this will no longer be the case. The Minister stated that Garda squad cars will patrol places such as the Mizen, the Beara and the Sheep's Head peninsulas and many other remote areas in Kerry, Donegal and other western counties. In such locations, it would probably take a garda an hour to drive - on bad roads - to the scene of a crime, which is ludicrous. A locally-based officer could be on the scene in a matter of minutes.

This is an extremely important matter. There is no evidence available that indicates that the smart policing model - or whatever one wishes to call it - offers a better way to operate. In the context of what Senator Landy and others stated, I am aware that, unfortunately, those who are taking the biggest hit in rural areas, particularly the area in which I live, are elected representatives from the Labour Party. Those opposite ignore that fact at their peril.

I posed a large number of questions on particular issues and I am disappointed the Minister did not bring greater clarity to the answers he offered in respect of them. As a justice spokesperson on this side of the House, it would be remiss of me to ignore those issues. The Minister, Deputy Shatter, has left the Chamber but I wish to give an assurance to his replacement that if what is happening is allowed to continue - if the resources and manpower available to the Garda are not improved and further rural stations are closed - we will raise this matter again and we will not be cowed by a lot of nonsense from the Government in respect of something that happened three or four years ago. In my opinion, the Minister's response was disappointing. I am most disillusioned with what he said.