Regina Doherty (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have four minutes and four full pages of notes on what was presented to me so if I do not get to everybody I apologise but I will try to touch on the main topics. I am happy to accept the amendment to the Order of Business proposed by Senator O'Loughlin and I will take up her offer too. We will withdraw her amendment and I will come back and see if we can find time to debate it if that is okay with the Independent Group.

One of the biggest topics that was raised is our support for An Garda Síochána. What we witnessed the other night is hard to understand and comprehend. What is even worse is it is not an isolated incident; these incidents are being presented to our gardaí week in and week out. That is not just happening in the areas we hear about on the television because there are bad apples in every single community and it is not fair to name Ballyfermot, Ballymun or any of the places we come from because there are bad apples in every barrel in every part of Ireland. I do not make the following point in any disrespectful way towards anybody who made contributions today or to any Minister, current or former. It is easy for us to stand up and say we support the Garda. We value our policing by consent because it makes for an Irish model. Irish society is changing, however, and I am not sure I can stand here and genuinely say I agree with the point about sentencing instead of fining. I am supportive of early intervention and providing services for children and young adults who might otherwise be led into certain types of lifestyles but we have an element of pure evil in our society that no amount of €1,000 or €5,000 fines will fix.

I do not know what the answer is and I am not standing here saying I do but Senators will agree with me that the morale in the Garda is as low as I have ever seen it. When I was younger and we were getting work after school and college, a number of members of my family, as in all of our families probably, went into An Garda Síochána. We felt pride for them and we still do but I am sorry because I would not let any of my children consider being a garda today because their morale is so low and the conditions they are working under are so different to what they were before. We say we support them and yet we are doing little to show we support them.