Mary Fitzpatrick (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate everybody involved in the breast cancer awareness campaign for the month of October. I also congratulate everybody who has survived breast cancer or cared for those with breast cancer. I encourage everybody to care for their pair and to be breast aware.

I also raise the issue of crime in the capital, in particular crime in communities like mine in Dublin Central, as well as safety and people's sense of safety in our capital city. The Minister for Justice has a pilot running in the north inner city, the community safety partnership. In Cabra, we have a community policing forum, of which I am a founding member going back more than 11 years. Dublin City Council operates a joint policing committee. There are structures and processes in place for the community to engage with the Garda and the local authority. Despite that, there is still a sense in the capital that crime has taken hold. I am talking about the type of crime that has a very negative effect on people's daily lives. I refer to sometimes small, incidental, opportunistic but very insidious crime such as antisocial behaviour in public spaces or on public transport. What I ask is that the Leader would organise a debate in the House to discuss with the Minister for Justice the approach to tackling crime in the capital.

It is important to note the Minister has committed 1,000 extra gardaí, but people living in communities in the capital want to know where those gardaí are going to be deployed and, most important, how they are going to operate in our communities. People want to see gardaí on their roads and streets and by their local shops. They want to see them on bikes and on foot in the community. I appeal to the Leader to invite the Minister for Justice to come to the House to debate this important issue.