Leaders' Questions

Ní féidir deireadh a chur leis an tseirbhís monatóireachta CCTV i Luimneach. Is cosaint thábhachtach í don phobal agus caithfidh an Rialtas leanúint ar aghaidh ag cur an maoiniú buan atá ag teastáil ar fáil chun an tseirbhís ríthábhachtach seo a choimeád ar oscailt. The country is still reeling from the horrific murders of four members of the English family, including two precious young children, in a petrol bomb attack on their home last month. This catastrophic and barbaric incident in Waterford put focus on the devastating consequences of violent organised crime and the escalating scourge of drug debt intimidation. In the early hours of yesterday morning, five adults and two children were rushed to hospital following yet another arson attack on a family home, this time here in Dublin. Families are held to ransom by drug gangs through threats, extortion and violence. They live every day with a sense of fear in communities across Ireland. There is anger that Government is not responding with force or purpose to keep communities safe. Limerick has suffered the torment, violence and consequences of organised drug crime and drug debt intimidation. The community spent decades working to overcome this scourge. Limerick understands how investing in community safety can really turn the tide, yet as communities look to Government for greater support and protection, it provides the exact opposite. It removes funding for one of Limerick's most important and most successful community protection services. The Limerick CCTV monitoring service was established in response to the violence that plagued communities. It monitors hundreds of cameras across the city and county. It is a vital resource for An Garda Síochána and for the community. It prevents crime and allows for incidents to be responded to. It is a proven and highly successful initiative that has taken years of work to develop. It is at the very core of Limerick's safety infrastructure. The service faces a funding shortfall of approximately €660,000 for 2027. The Department of local government is cutting the funding it has provided for years. The Department of justice refuses to take on funding responsibility. As things stand, just two days before Christmas, the doors will shut, hundreds of cameras will shut down and this vital crime prevention service will be lost to the people of Limerick. The Taoiseach should make no mistake; the big winner here will be the organised crime gangs that are seeking any opportunity to reassert themselves. Stripping the people of Limerick of this vital community safety service is a dangerous and disgraceful dereliction of the Government's duty. The Government has funded Limerick's CCTV monitoring service for decades. It must continue to fund it. There can be no excuses. We need a crystal clear commitment from the Taoiseach today. Does he accept that the closure of Limerick's CCTV service would be devastating? Does he accept that it cannot happen? Does he accept that the Government has a responsibility to provide the funding to keep it open? Will he now intervene directly and guarantee the €660,000 required to keep this service operational for 2027? Furthermore, will he commit to establishing a permanent multi-annual funding arrangement for this community's safety?

Tá gach iarracht á déanamh ag an Rialtas maidir leis an méid dúnmharaithe agus foréigin atá ar siúl ar fud na tíre ag daoine áirithe. Tá níos mó áiseanna agus airgid curtha ar fáil arís i mbliana don Roinn dlí agus cirt agus do na Ranna eile chun pobal na tíre a choimeád slán. Níl aon amhras ach go bhfuil brú ar dhaoine agus go bhfuil deacrachtaí agus dúshláin faoi leith ann. People are extremely angry, frustrated and shocked at the level of recklessness with which some criminals, particularly those involved in the area of drugs, behave in murdering, injuring and intimidating people and in endeavouring to undermine cohesion within communities. The Government is very clear that there will be no tolerance of that kind of behaviour. As the Deputy will know, An Garda Síochána implements a national anti-drugs strategy through Operation Tara. The focus of that operation is to disrupt, dismantle and prosecute drug trafficking networks at the local, national and international levels. The Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau leads in tackling all forms of drug trafficking and the supply of illicit drugs in Ireland. The consumption of drugs is a societal issue. It is far more widespread than it should be. There is an onus on all those who take drugs to realise that there is a very sordid, murderous and violent background to the provision and supply of drugs in our society. We have initiatives such as Operation Fógra, the drug-related intimidation reporting programme, and the Drug Related Intimidation and Violence engagement, DRIVE, programme, which is a national inter-agency initiative funded by the Departments of Health and justice. An Garda Síochána and the Minister for justice are extremely focused on dealing with the levels of intimidation that certain drug criminals are engaging in. The DRIVE programme brings together law enforcement, health services, social services and community organisations to address drug-related intimidation through a co-ordinated and victim-centred approach. Since its launch, more than 800 individuals have received training across 24 drug and alcohol task force areas. The Deputy raised the issue of the CCTV system in Limerick. She indicated that it has been in operation for quite a number of years now.

It is decades.

Exactly. At national level, there has been no pulling back from funding CCTV-----

There has.

There has.

You are closing it.

I can look at the specifics of the case but, on the €660,000, in my view, it is within the remit of the local authority and others to ensure that does not happen by Christmas. Funding to Government Departments, local authorities and across the board has now increased. CCTV systems have been in place for a long time and are included in the base funding allocations. There should not be an issue in respect of it. The fears I am hearing from An Garda Síochána regarding our new station in Newcastle West is that there are not enough gardaí to put into it. The Government's proposal is to get to 15,000 gardaí. To be honest, I think we need 15,000 more. We have a population now hitting 6 million and criminal levels are at an all-time high. In the parishes surrounding me, there were 16 robberies in two days and in the parishes adjoining them, 12 robberies were recorded in one place and 14 in another place, all of them done by criminal gangs. I was targeted last Friday when the keys of one vehicle, which were locked into a solid box, were taken, equipment worth €1,000 belonging to a carpenter was stolen and the lock was pulled off another van. We have the criminals, members of a well-known criminal gang, on CCTV, coming in and doing their work. They were gone within eight minutes. Gardaí need cameras with registration recognition technology in places where there are criminal gangs. If cars belong to criminal gangs are in an area, the Garda would then be notified automatically. That can be done. We have had cameras turned off in Kilmallock and Croom for data protection reasons. People who are doing nothing wrong should not be worried about a camera that is there to protect good people against criminals. Repeat criminals are being brought to court multiple times and left off. There is no place to put them or hold them, so what does the Government do? It lets them back out and they do the same thing over and over again. Garda resources are being used to build a case against them and by the time the Garda builds a case, they are only given a slap on the wrist. It is a case of "Out you go to do it again" and within a week, they are in with gardaí again. It is a waste of resources.

I also welcome the young 16-year-old, Kyle Lohan, to the House. I commend his interest in politics, and I advise him to keep an open mind into the future-----

He is with the best party possible.

-----as I did when I was 16 years of age. He is welcome to the House.

Do not forget Councillor Noel Thomas.

Sure you might get him back.

This is a new device, where Deputies bring their aspiring candidates into the House to get them mentioned.

He is really one of yours.

He is indeed.

There has been very consistent recruitment of gardaí in the past two years. We had a significant setback during Covid, with the closure of Templemore and so on. However, we should reach about 15,000 in the near future. At the end of August, the figure was about 14,600 and we have had a further attestation of 207 recently. I think we will make the 15,000 figure by the end of the year. We then want to go higher than that because there are also retirements, which we acknowledge. There are about 3,616 additional Garda staff who work alongside the gardaí. That has enabled about 900 gardaí to be freed up for front-line duties. We have made changes to the Garda trainee recruitment process, through an increased recruitment age and training allowance, shortened recruitment timeframes and reform of the physical competency test, construction of the assessment centre, approaches to elements of recruitment and regular recruitment competitions. There is healthy interest in joining An Garda Síochána, which is positive. As regards the Garda station, I presume the Deputy welcomes the investment into Newcastle West, which is significant. With this recruitment, we will be in a position to staff the station. The Commissioner has been progressively allocating additional gardaí, first to cities like Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Waterford and so on, and then to others. We have to get them out to rural Ireland, and the Minister for justice is very conscious of that. We will endeavour to get gardaí to west Limerick as well. We also note the passing of the late former Minister, Gerry Collins, who was a household name in Abbeyfeale and west Limerick more generally, and whose funeral is tomorrow. He was a former Minister for Justice. We are very conscious of the needs in the area. On criminal gangs, I regret what has happened in the Deputy's own situation, which he has articulated to the House, as well as the other robberies he referenced. They will be convicted and will not be left out again if they are well-known criminal gangs. Gardaí use cameras and information provided by the public to prosecute these people. They need to be prosecuted and brought to justice.

I also extend my sympathies to the family of former Minister, Gerry Collins, who will be laid to rest tomorrow in Abbeyfeale. I acknowledge everyone in politics and the contributions they make. We had a justice Minister in County Limerick, which covers east and west Limerick. All the criminal gangs know to target rural areas. All the Garda presence, as the Taoiseach just mentioned, is being put into Dublin city, Cork city and Limerick city. It is almost an hour and 40 minutes from one end of my constituency to the other. That is how far it is. We need Garda resources because criminals now know it is easy pickings. I welcome the Garda resources, the technology and the extra recruitment of gardaí, but the Government needs to stop putting all the gardaí into the cities. When you have a lot of people in one area, you can maintain them in it. However, in scattered places in rural Ireland, including rural Limerick, we deserve the same protection as people have in the cities. I would like to see that change.

There are gardaí being provided to rural Ireland, and there will be more allocated to rural Ireland as we continue to ramp up and get recruits into and out of Templemore in the time period. We are also investing in prisons, with close to €500 million. We want to create about 1,500 more spaces and we need to do this by 2031. It is the largest ever building programme in the prison estate. Some people are objecting to it but we have to drive ahead. The Deputy is correct in respect of the need. If someone is convicted, they do their time. That has to be the objective. In respect of technology, this Government has provided the technology required by An Garda Síochána. The previous Government had a different composition and others did not agree with giving gardaí the technology they needed to identify and convict criminals. As far as this Government is concerned, we will provide the technology and resources to procure that technology to An Garda Síochána because we have to stand behind it in facing up to this criminal element.