Michael Mullins (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Will the Leader schedule a debate with the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Fitzgerald, on Operation Thor and the recent announcement of major investments in IT, Garda vehicles and Garda manpower? I am glad there is a huge national debate taking place in respect of burglaries in rural and urban areas and I welcome the announcement yesterday of Operation Thor, which will tackle organised crime gangs and prolific offenders. We all want to see more checkpoints put in place to disrupt criminals who use motorways to travel between areas and commit crime and we will hopefully see many extra high-visibility patrols in identified burglary hotspots. However, there is another major issue that needs to be considered, namely, the market in stolen goods. Where are these criminals offloading the goods they have stolen? If there were no market for them, there would be far fewer burglaries and less crime. We need a forthright debate on this matter in the House. The Minister would learn a great deal from Senators on issues that are relevant in various parts of the country and on how the goods to which I refer are offloaded.

There is a need for a national crime prevention awareness campaign and I hope such a campaign will be rolled out in the coming weeks. We need to encourage communities to work together and with local gardaí in order to get more community alert schemes into place. As individuals, we all need to look at our own houses and premises to see how we can make them more secure and how we can be more careful when we are going out at night or if we are away during the day.

There is too much talk about the closure of small Garda stations. I do not want to see gardaí sitting around in small rural stations where there is very little happening. I want them out in patrol cars. I also want them out in communities, meeting people and getting to know them and picking up useful information. We need to wage war on crime and criminals, particularly who carry out burglaries. What we have seen this week and in recent weeks is the start of it. We all have a role to play. We all have a contribution to make to the debate on this matter. I would like such a debate to be facilitated in the House in the near future.