Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will place on record a profound failure of policing in my home county of Donegal. I have agreed with the victim's family that I will give this brief account. There is a long-established housing development in a town in Donegal. A number of years ago, two persons moved into a house in the development, one of whom, a man, has a long criminal record and has been convicted of dealing drugs many times. The other person, a woman, also has convictions for dealing drugs. The local community and residents in the housing development believe that these people continued these activities until recently. A very serious and terrifying incident took place last June. The man in question walked into the green area in the housing development and waved an axe around. He approached a pensioner and threatened to kill him and other residents and to burn them out of their homes. He was taken before the courts and released on bail. In fairness to An Garda Síochána, it opposed bail. It had made arrests previously. My serious difficulty is that I have met residents of that housing development in recent times and they are absolutely terrified of this man. Last Sunday night, a pensioner was violently assaulted. He was treated for a broken nose and broken cheekbone and received 15 stitches to a serious wound in his face and three staples to the back of his head. He was viciously and violently attacked and then left for dead. Even though everyone in the development knows that the criminal in question was responsible, he was not arrested that night. When I asked gardaí the following day - and I have not named any person - why this person had not been arrested, I was told that there was not enough evidence. We should be thankful that the family of the victim had CCTV footage which captured this violent assault. This information has to be placed on the record.