Sharon Keogan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the Chamber. I thank him for joining us today to talk about community safety.

We are here to talk about one of the most underacknowledged crises in the nation: the crisis of law and order. Many Irish people across the country feel that policing is virtually non-existent, criminality is allowed to run free and justice for victims is a distant ideal for regular people. At the core of this issue is the critical understaffing of An Garda Síochána. Many communities across Ireland find themselves with virtually no Garda presence, particularly in smaller rural communities. Even in Dublin, the force is stretched thin as it tries to deal with the rising levels of offences, with many stories of gardaí taking over an hour to respond to instances of violent assault.We also need to be realistic and truthful with the public in how we record crime according to nationality. For too long, our Government has been obfuscating any links between crime and the origins of the criminals. In 2022, plans to consider recording nationality were announced. What became of these considerations? Across Europe, many other national police forces have been allowed to record this data and have subsequently studied these questions in depth. This has allowed raw data to inform the conversations and decision-making of other EU nations. The data would suggest allowing unvetted potential criminals to come and go as they please, as the current Government does, is not conducive to community safety.

At the same time, we are also having to deal with a new generation of cartelised drug gangs that are increasingly operating with ease across porous borders using Ireland as a drugs import hub for Europe. I take this opportunity to praise the Trojan work being undertaken by Detective Chief Superintendent Séamus Boland and his team in stepping up seizures and combating organised crime in our country. However, it is worrying that the scale and number of seizures and arrests only ever seem to increase. Unfortunately, like many gardaí, Detective Chief Superintendent Boland is fighting an uphill battle.

Year in and year out, the successive governments of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have seemed to think it acceptable to throw open the borders and to then sit on their hands while our police force haemorrhages numbers. Last week, we were told it is expected that 1,640 gardaí will be eligible to retire in the coming five years. Meanwhile, in the past two years, only 1,304 entered the college at Templemore with only a little over 800 being sworn in. This is not considering the 500 who left the force last year alone. Who can blame them for wanting to go? As force numbers dwindle and crime rates soar, the working life of those gardaí who choose to stay on becomes even more miserable and toxic. They are overworked and undersupported and we are now stuck in a vicious circle where each garda who leaves creates more incentive for the rest to go.

What is the Government going to do to address this question? Is it talking about seriously improving the pay packets of our police force's members to better compensate them for their hard work? No. Instead, the Government is trying to somehow close the gap by bandying about proposals for facial recognition laws. Ultimately, the Government appears to be intent on straying into very dangerous and even totalitarian waters, violating our citizens' right to privacy. At the same time, it does not seem intent on paying for the police force it intends to uphold this project. In this regard, it is unbelievable that I have to credit the Government for at least being somewhat more realistic than certain members of the Opposition who have been proposing that we put special anonymous knife surrender bins at the disposal of would-be stabbers. This approach has failed totally in England since its introduction more than 20 years ago. At least the Government is a little more imaginative and original with its impossible ideas as to how to reduce crime without paying police a decent wage and pension.

If the Minister wishes to make concrete improvements to security surveillance in this country, I am happy to suggest improvements that could be made today. For example, we could improve surveillance by having data controllers permit the usage of number plate recognition in the CCTV systems currently available in many towns and cities nationwide instead of using number plate recognition software solely to dole out speeding tickets on motorways and to take money off people in high-end car parks. The Minister could also make immediate improvements in the exact same area by ordering the chief executives of the local authorities to be the data controllers of their local CCTV systems. Unfortunately, many CEOs are unwilling to take up that burden. The Minister can and must step in to force the CEOs to step up.

While speaking of aimless and confused projects, I will also take the opportunity to raise the issue of the future of Thornton Hall. Following the fiasco of numerous Government developments such as the Dublin children's hospital, many Irish taxpayers are justified in fearing that we will face yet another end-of-the-rainbow scenario. In other words, the closer we get to the theoretical deadline for Thornton Hall, the further away it will get. While wasted time would be one thing, we know well enough that the further the deadline recedes the higher the final bill will be. Sadly, we are already beginning to see that in this case. A report in The Irish Timesearlier this year showed that more than €114,000 had already been spent over the last three years on an effectively empty site. This included €27,000 to repair boundary and perimeter security and €4,832 in water charges. The final aggravation associated with this issue is that the Government is not only failing to tell us its plans to get things done, but is also now failing to tell us what it plans to do with the site in the first place. Last year, the Department of Justice told us that 30 acres of this site were to be earmarked to create a processing centre for asylum applicants. Knowing the scale of the migration and asylum crisis, it is highly unlikely that these 30 acres would be enough. I understand that a contract was signed with the Prison Service for the use of this land for two years. A contract was also signed by the Department of children and integration in May 2024 with the provider of on-site services and facilities for these international protection applicants. I have no doubt that this contract is still in place despite plans for this site getting side-tracked. Will the Minister look into that waste of money as well?

In addition, we are facing a crisis of overcrowding in our prisons. Sadly, it looks like the new prison will need every acre we can get. Just today, the Irish Independentreported that more than 300 prisoners are without beds, with some commentators believing that more than 500 are sleeping on mattresses on floors. The issue has been so bad for so long that, as far back as May of last year, the Irish Prison Service was going into talks with the Defence Forces to reopen the old military prison at the Curragh. I ask the Minister for Justice, who is with us today, to give us a timeline for the construction of the new prison at Thornton Hall and to let us know how much of this site his Department is willing to hand over to his colleagues at the Department of children and integration. Is he taking it back? How does he intend to co-ordinate the construction project alongside the processing centre?

Times change and plans change. That is fine but we simply must have a plan in the first place. This style of slap-dash improvisation is unacceptable and not worthy of Government, whether in the reinforcement of An Garda Síochána, the creation of the new security legislation or the construction of a new prison facility. I actually believe the Minister will do really good things in this Department. I really have faith in him. I look forward to working with him over the coming years.