Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. Like Councillor McGovern, I live in the area we are talking about. The week before last, while a man suffering from motor neurone disease was being helped into his family car to go for medical treatment, burglars literally walked through the front door, took anything that was of value, went out the back door, climbed over my garden wall and got away. My garden wall is the best part of 10 ft. high on that person's side.

We were promised that Stepaside Garda station would reopen. At a recent public meeting, the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport stated it was not a question of "if" but of "when". That would help to some degree in our area but I agree with Councillor McGovern, who has put a huge amount of work into the electronic tagging issue, that it is probably the best solution overall. At least we will know where these people are and we can identify them post crime. They can do an entire estate now in one evening. The issue is becoming very serious.