Catherine Ardagh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am shocked at the news that a garda and another man were injured during a shooting incident in Ballymun this morning. Thankfully their injuries are not life-threatening, however the incident shows the importance of resourcing gardaí, especially when they undertake serious missions in respect of drug crime. We need to know that our gardaí are highly trained and have the very best expertise available to them so that these types of incidents do not happen again.

We had a serious debate last week on An Garda Síochána, the visibility of gardaí on the beat and community gardaí. Obviously we have not seen a massive increase in the number of community gardaí. I call on the Minister for Justice and Equality to set up a scheme to ensure that we see more community gardaí on the beat not only to protect individuals but so that citizens feel that little more secure in their homes.

I would also like to raise the issue of home repossession lists. I was listening to Brian O'Connell on the radio this morning. He was reporting from a courthouse. One of the notable facts he reported was that there will be repossession sittings up until four days before Christmas. He also reported the commentary of a registrar on the mortgage-to-rent scheme, with which there seemed to be a lot of dissatisfaction. The registrar, Mary Delahanty, was refusing to grant adjournments to people who were seeking to apply for the mortgage-to-rent scheme on the basis that she felt it was not working. She said that she had only seen six successful applications to the scheme and that very few people were able to avail of it.

Criticism of politicians was also in the ether. It was suggested that we were using the mortgage-to-rent scheme as a sort of crutch and that we thought it would solve the issue of home repossessions. It is important that we call the Minister to the House to have a serious debate on the actual success of this scheme to date, how it is working and how it is being implemented.