Gerald Nash (Labour) | Oireachtas source

My home town of Drogheda is in a state of fear this week in a way I have never witnessed. On Monday a man was shot in broad daylight as he sat in his car outside a toy store in a retail park in Drogheda and is now fighting for his life. The town of over 40,000 people, the town I am from and love, has been in the grip of a violent criminal feud for a few months. However, it has the level of policing cover one would expect in a provincial backwater, not in a town or city of the scale and significance of Drogheda. We simply do not have enough gardaí on the streets to fulfil normal policing duties, let alone investigate the ongoing violent criminal feud.

There are six or seven gardaí per unit or shift, as opposed to 12 or 14 in other towns and cities of equivalent size. There is a single marked car policing an area with a population of close to 60,000. The armed support unit that was deployed a number of months ago to Drogheda in response to the criminal feud was withdrawn last week. To add insult to injury, in a decision handed down by top brass last week overtime by gardaí based in Drogheda Garda station was banned. One would not need to be a criminal mastermind to figure out that now is the best time to shoot somebody in Drogheda when there is little policing cover, when existing gardaí are under incredible strain, when there are few vehicles to police the area and when the permanent armed support unit has been withdrawn. It is now back on the streets, albeit probably on a temporary basis, to deal with the fall-out of what happened on Monday.

We immediately need more gardaí permanently based in Drogheda. The Minister for Justice and Equality came to the town in December and it is regrettable that he is not present to answer questions from me. He was happy to visit the Garda station in Drogheda to have his picture taken with the local Fine Gael councillors and Deputy and tell gardaí that what Drogheda wanted Drogheda got. On the one hand, he is having his picture taken in Garda stations, while, on the other, he claims he is not responsible for operational policing matters such as the allocation of gardaí to certain stations. That is simply not good enough.

We were allocated eight probationary gardaí straight out of the Garda College in Templemore last December, while 15 have been withdrawn. We have only been left with an additional three. We need more gardaí permanently. I do not want to hear such nonsense as it is not a matter for the Minister for Justice and Equality to allocate gardaí. He needs to take political responsibility. The people of Drogheda need protection. Gardaí in Drogheda also need protection and support which they are not getting. This is a political issue. It is a matter of accountability. I want to hold the Minister and the Commissioner accountable.

Tomorrow the Taoiseach will make a planned visit to Drogheda. I was not aware of this visit; I heard about it through the media, as I heard about the visit of the Minister to Drogheda through the media. There is a long-standing convention and protocol that Oireachtas Members of all parties are notified of the visit of a Minister or the Taoiseach, but I have yet to receive that notification. I suggest to the Taoiseach that he not come to Drogheda if he does not have more resources for An Garda Síochána.