Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am saying that gardaí are being portrayed as not doing their jobs and that is because things like organised crime with regard to retail are not being prioritised. There are things that are not being prioritised. We have all sorts of other issues on which gardaí are saying resources are not being put into because the priorities are not there.

A person from the retail authority said that an announcement was made regarding a new Garda initiative around retail crime. I am not too sure if it is because the Oireachtas is actually having the meeting today, but that person said that what we do not want are initiatives with regard to road safety and other priorities that will come and go. However, because they are not included in a sustained plan and listed as the priorities, which is a good idea, we do not have a continual wave of initiatives around things like speeding, organised retail crime and others. They are not listed in this very worthy policy of having priorities. The only way we can make sure of that is if the representatives of the people on the ground who are dealing with all the crime - not the statistics but the crime - are one of those groups that have to be consulted as a "must", rather than a "may".