Paul Coghlan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome and back the call by the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Charles Flanagan, yesterday for a new cross-Border task force to tackle organised cross-Border crime comprehensively. As we know, such crime is controlled in many areas by the Provisional IRA, as was recently documented in a report. This is something which we in the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly unanimously recommended last February at a plenary meeting in Dublin. The Taoiseach greatly welcomed it at the time. I am delighted that the Minister, Deputy Flanagan, is pursuing this further in the ongoing talks at Stormont. Cross-Border crime has its roots in paramilitary groups which existed and were active in other areas using other methods, thankfully no longer. It appears to me these people have continued their organisation for their own benefit and their own criminality. They are crime lords in these areas and try to control things as tightly as they can. I accept that a blind eye is not being turned to these people. However, policing is so light and merely a token, if I may say so, particularly on the other side of the Border in south Armagh, that they do not need a blind eye to be turned. They are able to carry on with impunity. For all these reasons I am delighted that the establishment of this task force is being pursued more actively.

I also greatly welcome the announcement by the Minister for Justice and Equality that we will have 27 gardaí, including two sergeants, allocated immediately to the Louth division. This is in addition to the 600 new gardaí who will be recruited next year and the 550 we will have by the end of this year. As we know, part of the criminality in that area involves the pollution of the Fane River system and Lough Ross from which drinking water is extracted for the Crossmaglen, south Armagh and Dundalk areas. While I know that water is treated, it is disgraceful that such activity is able to go on in this modern-day, democratic society.