Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Ba mhaith liom buíochas a ghabháil leis an gCathaoirleach. I welcome Minister of State, Deputy Stanton, and I congratulate him on his appointment as a Minster of State. As Senator Bacik has said, the Minister of State brought years of dedicated service to the justice committee and I was pleased, as chairmen of the health committee that worked in a cross-departmental way with him on the issue of drugs. I wish him well.

It is important that in the Minister of State's speech it says that this Act is an important tool in ongoing efforts in the fight against terrorism and that we must ensure An Garda Síochána and the Government have every tool available to them in the war and the fight against organised crime. We must eradicate organised crime.

I listened to Senator Dolan's comments and I agree with some of what he said about how we can tackle this through education, empowerment and rebuilding our inner cities in particular, through working in a cross-departmental and cross-sectoral community way to make life better for people. That can begin in a multiplicity of ways. However, if we do not allow for the State to be able to do its work and to have resources such as these Bills, then we are in big trouble.

Equally, the issue of resourcing, the rostering of staff, community gardaí and education are very important. We saw the amount of money which was invested through RAPID into inner city areas. I worked with RAPID on Cork City Council where we enhanced the public realm and domain in the streetscapes, along with the quality of life for people. That means we must look at the issue of child care and its affordability, housing and affordable housing in tandem with resourcing our gardaí and ensuing that our community leaders and our citizens, along with An Garda Síochána and the courts, can tackle and eradicate gangland crime.

It is important that this cycle is ended and, equally, that we work together to ensure a situation whereby we do not need these types of legislation because, as Senator Bacik rightly said, some of the legislation has not been used at all. When we talk about new politics it is important that we take new politics out of the Chamber and - following on from the visit by the Taoiseach yesterday evening to the inner city - that we can ensure there is a new way of doing business. A way where community leaders and those who are employed by the State, by the city councils and by NGOs in tandem with active volunteers can make life better and that the culture and attitude among people will change also. I say this as someone who has been in schools - and as the Minister of State knows from his own background - education is critical. Empowering young people and giving them a dream of a better future and a vision of a better life is a great step forward. I hope the visit of the Taoiseach last night is not just seen as a photo opportunity - as was reported in some of the papers today - but that this would be the beginning of something different.