Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator sincerely for raising this timely and pertinent issue. It is an issue I am extremely interested in as the Minister of State responsible for retail and one about which I have serious concerns that affect all our communities. It is important to put a statistic out there. There are more than 225,000 retail workers in the State. It is the largest private sector employer in the State and has huge importance to our economy but crucially also to our communities. I think that goes to some of the points the Senator is making in terms of the ability to access stores late at night. I watched the "Prime Time" episode on Tuesday night and more importantly, I chaired the retail forum in the Department yesterday where this was discussed at my request. We added it into the agenda under any other business. I will be really clear before the House this morning on the point that everyone should feel safe in their workplace. It does not matter where they work, but I refer in particular to retail workers and consumer and front-facing staff in every sector. This is an area on which I intend on working closely with the Minster for Justice, Deputy Harris. I spoke with him yesterday about it briefly but we are going to speak again. After speaking to and engaging with retailers and representatives such as Ms Tara Buckley of RGDATA, I am aware that the main way they want to be kept safe is by having more gardaí on the ground, on the streets in our community and not trapped behind a desk in a Garda station. That is why, as a Government, we are prioritising high visibility policing as shown in Operation Citizen, which has been ongoing in Dublin city for some time now. The results are clear: having more gardaí on the streets helps not only to make people feel safer but also reduces crime and actually keeps us as citizens safe. We also have Operation Soteria in place to ensure a reduction of assaults in public, to reduce fear of violence within communities, to prioritise assault investigations and to focus on problem areas and assault hot spots. This is what we need to replicate across the country and we are well on our way towards doing so. There is of course a role for sentencing here too. The Criminal Justice Bill 2022 will bring forward an increase in the maximum penalty available for the offence of assault causing harm from five years to ten years' imprisonment. While we all want to deter crimes before they take place, and high visibility policing works towards this, we also must punish those who commit these assaults to send a strong message that they are not acceptable.

Budget 2023 allowed for the recruitment of 1,000 additional gardaí to join the ranks, as well as 400 civilian staff. These civilian staff members are so important because they do the administrative work in the stations which allows members of the Garda themselves to spend more time in our communities where they want to be. I firmly believe this lies at the heart of keeping everyone safe, retail workers included, and I am glad to hear that the Minister, Deputy Harris, agrees with this. Tomorrow, a new Garda recruitment campaign will kick off a new Garda recruitment period. This goes to the fact that over €2.14 billion has been put into the An Garda Síochána budget for this year and we are not holding back on achieving these goals.

As the Senator knows, this is an issue that I have raised many times previously in this House but also when I was a Deputy on the backbenches. It is vitally important we have the increased number of gardaí. Now that Templemore has been reopened and we are constantly attesting members of the Garda, we are not only plugging the gap of retirements or resignations but are getting more gardaí out into communities and onto the streets. Crucially, we are working with retailers and local business groups to feed in their experience and their views on what they would like to see happen to keep their workers safe. An Garda Síochána has a range of national, regional and local operations aimed at reducing antisocial behaviour and improving feelings of community safety. Garda management keeps the distribution of resources under continual review and this is something on which I will continue to work with the Minister, Deputy Harris. Crucially, I would like to work with the Senator, with groups like RGDATA and other Members across the Oireachtas, to make sure our retails workers are put front and centre in ensuring their workplaces are safe ones.