Deputy Kelly in possession. He has 24 minutes available.
Private Members' Business:Crimes of Violence: Motion (Resumed).
The following motion was moved by Deputy Harte on Tuesday, 22nd November, 1977:
That Dáil Éireann expresses its concern at the increasing frequency of offences of armed robbery and similar offences of violence, and deplores the failure of the Government to check this trend.
Debate resumed on the following amendment:
To delete all words after Dáil Éireann and substitute the following:—
"notes with concern the increasing frequency of crimes of violence, particularly armed robberies, and expresses its confidence in the Garda Síochána to reverse this trend."
—(Minister for Justice.)
Last night, in the few minutes during which I spoke, I complained about the Minister's contribution, while making allowance for the fact that he had not expected to make it at that time. I complained about it particularly because, in view of the fact that he put in an amendment and that the House will be asked to vote confidence in the capacity of the Garda Síochána from now on to contain armed violence, I would have expected him to have told the House what he has done since assuming office on 5th July to reverse the trends of neglect, slackness and indifference which he affected to find in the behaviour of the National Coalition Government in this field. He spoke for 30 minutes, with great passion, in parts, and I am as wise now as when he started in regard to what exactly he has done to improve the situation, the striking power of the Garda, to improve their recruitment rate and to give them resources which they previously lacked.
I positively and straightly charge him, because he had his opportunity, that he has done absolutely nothing about any of these matters. He has not improved the recruitment or numbers of the Garda let alone produced an improvement in numbers comparable with that which the previous Government produced in four-and-a-half years. He has not done anything about improving their equipment or making sure that extra patrols are where they are needed. All we get from him now is something he would have laughed his predecessor to scorn for offering the House, namely, a scolding lecture to banks, filling stations, supermarkets and the rest, about looking after their own property better. I thoroughly agree with him that anyone who has property which is at risk and, above all, who has employees whose duty requires them to look after their property and who know that because their property is valuable they will be at risk, has a duty to do his best to make sure that his premises do not represent a sitting target for gunmen. But I disagree with him in thinking that the Dáil should regard that as an adequate response to this motion. If Senator Pat Cooney, then Minister for Justice, had offered that to the House, had met a motion like this by telling the House that it is the business of people with supermarkets, dancehalls and whatever else it is to look after their money in the first instance, he would have been laughed to scorn and would have been accused of having no notion about where his responsibilities lay and of not caring where they lay.
I am afraid I have to make the same charge in respect of the Minister. I have already spoken about my personal regard for him and I will not go back over that. I have to say that I think it is the prospect that he has four-and-a-half years of his own in power during which he can mend any number of fences that leads him to give this contemptuous answer to the House on a serious motion.
Nobody can accuse the National Coalition Government of not being concerned about violence. There is some evidence, which I will give to the House before I sit down, to show that it was because of the National Coalition's uncompromising stand against savagery and brutality that a certain proportion of public sympathy wandered away from them. I am sorry that in saying that I appear to be making a reflection on the people of Ireland of whom you are one and I also am one. There is that streak in the Irish people which was not content with the uncompromising approach of the National Coalition Government in areas like this, spearheaded by the previous Minister for Justice. He paid a political penalty for that.
(Interruptions.)
Deputy Killilea will have an opportunity to speak later on if he wishes.
His party, to which I am proud to belong, and the Government, which I was proud to serve, paid a political penalty for it also. I would pay it again and pay it ten times over. It is not good enough that a Government like that, now in opposition by the people's wishes, which we unquestionably accept and recognise, in relation to a motion emanating from this side of the House on a topic like this should be met by the Minister for Justice with a scolding lecture about how people with property should look after it better and without giving the House one single hint about what he had done materially to improve the striking power of the Garda Síochána or to make them better fit to combat this wave of violence.
(Interruptions.)
I firmly believe this Deputy was brought in here deliberately last night in order to deliver a contemptuous speech to the House so that the Minister could wait until he had heard what we had to say. He missed his chance last night and he proposes to speak tonight by way of interrupting me.
Last night the Chair ruled that the Minister had to speak. That is a long-standing rule. If Deputy Killilea wishes to speak he can follow the Deputy.
He was all set to get in and make a bear-garden of the House for half an hour and now he is trying to make a bear-garden of my speech. Good luck to him, because he will not succeed.
When I talk I talk about facts. I have to listen to the Deputy.
Deputy Killilea does not have to listen to the Deputy. He can come in after him if he wishes. If he is coming in I will call him and he can speak. Deputy Kelly is in possession.
I charge the Minister with having produced no improvement in Garda numbers, no improvement in Garda organisation, no improvement in Garda equipment and a severe disimprovement in Garda morale on account of a couple of factors in regard to his own approach to his job, which I will mention in a little while.
The Minister disclaimed last night having what he called a phobia about overtime. All right. He has not got a phobia about overtime; but exactly a year ago tonight the man who is now Minister, sitting on those benches, moved a motion in the House which deplored the very thing we are now deploring. It was nothing like as bad then as it is now. The whole burden of his speech then, the whole pivot on which it rested was what he alleged was a skinflint policy of the then Government in cutting back Garda overtime. I challenge the Minister to give the House this evening—I am sure anyone will give way to him if he wants to come in to speak twice——
He would not be in order in speaking twice.
No, but with your indulgence and our acquiescence, I have no doubt we could accommodate him.
He could not speak twice even with my indulgence and with the Deputy's acquiescence.
We will take it from the mouth of the Minister for the Gaeltacht, Deputy Killilea or anyone else of his party colleagues to whom he wishes to give the facts. I challenge him in security, because I know he will not and cannot do it, to give the House tonight the figures for extra money which he has spent on Garda overtime since assuming office nearly five months ago. I do not believe there is two pence worth of extra overtime, I do not believe there is two pence worth of extra equipment and I do not believe he has put two pence worth of serious thought, let alone consultancy, into trying to improve Garda organisation, equipment or morale. If he had done this he would have told us about it when he had the chance last night.
I do not believe those things are there. I challenge him, his side and the Government to tell us about them tonight if they are. I am quoting from the speech he made on the second night of the debate, on the 24th November, 1976, when the motion was resumed. He quoted from the editorial of the Garda Review—I will go back to this topic also before I finish—he adopted this opinion by quoting the Garda Review that the Garda were being “strangled financially” by the last Government. I want to know to what extent the rope round the Garda neck has been loosened by this Government. I had not the same suspicions about it last night as I have now. The Government came into power on a raft of promises, including an immediate dealing with the law and order crisis. “What law? what order?” was one of their advertisements. I must take my hat off to the advertising agency that produced it; it was a very effective one. It pulled me up in my stride when I saw it. He has had five months to contrive something of this sort and absolutely no sign came through last night that anything had been done in this regard. He rested his entire case a year ago on what he thought, what he said or alleged was a limit on overtime. What overtime has he authorised or permitted? What extra overtime over and above what ordinary circumstances require, or what the Garda authorities would have recommended, has he authorised? If this debate concludes without the House being told, we are being sold short by the loudest mouth that ever was in Fianna Fáil on this topic.
The Minister gave figures. Other Deputies on his own side gave the same figures this time a year ago in regard to armed robberies. They said with perfect truth that there was a time when an armed robbery in this country was a nine days' wonder, when it would be "the armed robbery" and it would be in the headlines for days on end. He contrasted that with the situation which developed in the 1970s whereby they were so common that they were to be found if at all on page 11, 13 or 15 of a paper with company reports and items of that kind that are not normally reckoned as front page news. That was a perfectly fair and legitimate comment for him to make.
The figures which the Minister thought were so appalling in November, 1976, have been left far behind in November, 1977. They are out of sight; and not only that, but the figures for the summer of this year, the two-month period spanning the election and the assumption of office by the new Government, are out of sight too. June was a very quiet month as far as robberies were concerned. It was a very active month politically but so far as armed robberies were concerned it was very quiet. I could only find in the newspapers an account of two armed robberies in June.
Now I freely concede it is not representative and the average level for 1975 and 1976 was higher than that. In July it bounced back again. There were 13 armed robberies. They caught up with themselves. In the two-month period—a very fair representative period, 61 days—there were 15 armed robberies. Between 28th October and 19th November this year, a period of 22 days, there were 28 armed robberies, 20 of them in this city of Dublin. That is an increase which no amount of juggling with figures, no amount of talking about seasonal trends, or adjustments up or down will account for. The fact of the matter is, and I do not take any pleasure in saying it, that the situation, far from improving as a result of the advent of a new Government, has disimproved. I do not want to be taken as saying that there is the slightest flaw or fault in the Minister for Justice's heart in regard to law and order. I say that with no tongue in cheek. He is as much committed to law and order and putting down crime as anyone in this House, but he is not making enough of understanding or seeing the reality of the situation he is now facing.
The situation is incomparably worse now than it was when we handed over. He quoted here last night figures in regard to the overall growth in crime in the quarter for which the most recent figures are available compared with the comparable quarter in 1975. These figures seem bad. The figures for the first quarter in 1977 showed that crime of all kinds had increased in that year during which the National Coalition was in office by 11.7 per cent compared with the first quarter of 1976. But the overall crime figures issued by the Garda Síochána about a fortnight ago which gave the figures for July, August and September—a quarter during which on all but five days a new Government was in office —showed an increase in crime compared with the corresponding period in the previous year of 27 per cent. This is an enormous increase.
I am not saying it is the Government's fault. Anyone who did say it was the Government's fault would forfeit, and deservedly so, the regard of this House. Of course it is not the Government's fault, but it is their fault that they do not appreciate or understand the seriousness of the position. It is their fault that they have not put into effect any of the improvements and reforms they were so earnestly urging on the Minister's predecessor. It most certainly is their fault that they think they can shrug off the responsibility, firstly by delivering a lecture here about people who have control of large sums of money, and secondly, by putting down an amendment which neatly proposes to shift responsibility for this development from the Minister, which is where political responsibility ultimately belongs, on to the Garda Síochána. That is a cowardly manoeuvre.
Our motion proposes to fix on to the Minister responsibility for the trend in crimes of violence and deplores the failure of the Government to check this trend. Of course, Deputy Collins, Minister for Justice, is not a policeman and no one expects him personally to take a hand in this and no one expects him to direct day-to-day Garda operations. He is not trained to do it. He is not able to do it. He is not fit to do it any more than I am. But he must take political overall responsibility for what happens in this area. What is his amendment?
To delete all words after Dáil Éireann and substitute the following:—
"notes with concern the increasing frequency of crimes of violence, particularly armed robberies, and expresses its confidence in the Garda Síochána to reverse this trend."
The Government have left the picture in this amendment. They are not willing to carry any responsibility, political or otherwise, for this; that, together with the attempt to which attention was drawn, and very rightly so, by a newspaper last month, to do down a public servant in an area not 100 miles from what we are talking about by Press insinuations—those two things show a contemptible frame of mind. I hope the Minister is not personally responsible for the drafting of this amendment. I am certain none of his officials are. But it shows in the party and the Government to which he belongs a contemptible frame of mind.
I want to give the Minister three pieces of advice, three concrete suggestions in regard to dealing with this problem. The first two I hope he will not think unduly controversial. My first piece of advice bears on his relationship with the Garda Síochána. In his speech last night—mark you, it only echoed the speech he made that night exactly a year previously—he repeatedly and rhetorically declaimed a point of view that the previous Government had been responsible for letting violence increase. He said this was not just his own opinion at all. It was "the opinion of the Garda Síochána." I am quoting him now from the Official Report. He said
it was the gardai who said they had not the resources and that they were being denied them by the Government. It was the gardai who said that squad cars were stranded at the time because the men who drove them were not being paid. It was the gardaí who said that the criminals were not being caught because there was not sufficient manpower.
The Minister went on to say that if Deputy Harte wanted to check what he was saying he would find the truth of the matter not alone in the Official Report but in an editorial in the Garda magazine.
There is no such thing as the Garda magazine. There is a review, and it is a very good and very readable review, and I try to digest it from cover to cover. It is an organ of the Garda Representative Body, but it is not the "official Garda review" on anything; and it is a very dangerous and irresponsible and regrettable thing for this Minister—I am speaking now on non-party lines because it could be that I will never sit on that side of the House ever again—that could be; we cannot see into the future—and it could be that any prediction, any warning given here would be one purely for the benefit of the far side—but it is a dangerous and foolish thing for him to take up an editorial in essentially a trade union organ and brandish it around as though it were necessarily the truth. It tends to encourage the expression of views like that, which he may very well one day find are by no means welcome in his Department. It tends to encourage the building and the driving of a wedge between the gardaí and the Government that pays them, and the Government for which they are supposed to work.
I do not suppose the Minister did this with any ill intent but I want to warn him about the unwisdom of trying to score political points by using an expression of opinion of this kind, although he must take note of it, certainly ought to read it and by no means ignore it, but not give it official status by adopting such opinions as being in some way opinions which bind him, because he will one day find that that column will contain opinions with which he violently disagrees, and he will not be so keen to have them binding then. That goes not only for him but for the next Minister for Justice from whichever party he comes, my party or the Minister's party.
The second piece of advice I want to give him is not to interfere with Garda recruitment procedures, which have been there for a very long time and have worked very well. I have here the written reply given to Deputy Gilhawley a couple of days ago. Deputy Gilhawley asked if it was true that some applicants for the garda who had been rejected by the interview board were being recalled for further interview. The Minister gave a very frank reply. I shall only quote a part of it because my time is running out.
All candidates who qualified in the competitive entrance examination will be called for interview. 899 have been called for interview to date, of whom 596 have passed.
90 candidates who were rejected by the interview board were recalled for interview. 73 of them presented themselves and 52 were successful.
By 31st August, 1977, the number of candidates who had been rejected by the interview board as distinct from being rejected on medical grounds was much higher than at any previous competition and this was the cause of complaint not only from candidates but from Deputies of all Parties. The Commissioner, accordingly, arranged to recall for further interview all candidates who had been rejected by the interview board up to that date including a number who had not at that stage been notified that they had been rejected.
That is a damnable procedure. I know the Minister will say there were men on this side urging him to do it. I am sure there were. Possibly I might have done it myself. But what it means is that there are men now coming into the force that the interview board, the established machinery, did not think acceptable, not for reasons of moral obliquity—they could be for reasons which are in no way a reflection on the men concerned—perhaps an insufficient motivation to become policemen; it could be any of these reasons which are in no way discreditable— but for reasons which, whether discreditable or not, that board and those with authority there since the foundation of the State, or near it, did not think those men acceptable. In response to political pressure which, I am sure, came from this side as well as from the Minister's, the decision of that board was upended and new interviews were held; and the net result will be that men are coming into that force who on the ordinary criterion would not have been thought acceptable. That is the wrong way to go, and the Minister will regret that too.
The third thing is that he will have to stand up and be counted, although I know his heart is in the right place in this regard when it comes to the political dimension of what we are talking about. I have here a small cutting from the Irish Times of 26th July which reports a Fianna Fáil councillor —I will not name him—as saying at a meeting of Roscommon County Council that the people of Ireland “had shown that they did not agree with the persecution and prosecution of republicans.” He interpreted the election result as being something which was a reflection on the then Government's attitude towards dealing with terrorists. Such a statement is just as deadly to those over there as it is to this side of the House. Unless this Minister and the Government are willing to stand up and disclaim that point of view, even when uttered in an oblique way as in Roscommon, they have a long bitter road ahead of them. No amount of soft treading, no amount of withholding of statements when statements are called for, as was the case recently in regard to Ballina, will make any difference until the kind of weak minded people who are willing to make excuses for savagery and murder understand that all political sides reject them and will not tolerate them in their parties at any price; and so long as a councillor of that kind is a paid-up member of Fianna Fáil, that party is not safe, not to speak of the State.
Listening to the statements made by the Opposition spokesman on Justice and by the last speaker, one shudders to think what might have been the future of this nation and its security. I will recall a few words uttered by Deputy Harte last night when he said we would be blind if we did not know that there was suspicion that for many years there had been political involvement, particularly when Fianna Fáil were in office. He said we would be blind if we did not know that most of the gardaí voted for Fianna Fáil in the last election and we would also be blind if we did not remark that so also did the Provisional IRA supporters. There is no doubt that that statement, made in the Parliament of this nation by the Opposition spokesman on Justice, does nothing less than score a point for subversives by equating the Garda Síochána and the IRA, by making them equal in the ballot boxes.
That is not the point I was making.
The Deputy made it. That is the point.
Apparently Deputy Harte thinks that the increase in crime occurred only in the past six months. With some little knowledge as a former member of the Garda Síochána, I suggest that the escalation in the growth of crime coincided with the coming into office of the Coalition and it gradually increased during their term in Government. I can assure Deputy Kelly that the Minister for Justice in his first few months in that responsible office has received greater acceptance from the public, the Garda and the legal profession than Deputy Kelly obtained during his brief period as Attorney General.
There can be no doubt that during the period of the last Government minor crimes were completely ignored because there was no political kudos for the Government there. They were concerned with what they described as major law and order issues, forgetting that major crime is in many instances a consequence of failure to prevent or to deter minor crimes. Another factor was the complete termination of overtime for the Garda. That meant that the primary function of the Garda was interfered with directly by the Government in so far as the preventive nature of their duties is concerned. Some of the people engaged in major crimes today are doing so because there was no attempt to rehabilitate them in the past few years as any responsible Government would have done. It was the present Minister who concerned himself almost immediately with providing a suitable place for young offenders.
The growth of crime in the past few years has been a direct consequence of Government inaction, of their failure to do anything about unemployment. We had brilliant young people with idle minds being left to the mercy of the winds. Nothing was done about bad housing conditions and our health services were allowed to grind to a halt until the present Minister for Health came to the rescue.
The Minister has said that the banks, hotels and other institutions could help to ease the situation by playing their part. Indeed all citizens could play a great part in the prevention of crime by assisting the police force. I do not see why the banks and the supermarkets should have any more claim on the time of the Garda than any other members of our society. For that reason I commend the Minister for reiterating something that has not been said so well since a previous Fianna Fáil Government were in office.
Having regard to the remarks and statements made, the credibility of the people who made them must be in question and consequently the motion of no confidence in the present Minister cannot be taken seriously.
First of all, let me say that my comments will be on the motion and what has led up to it. There is nothing personal as far as the Minister is concerned. I have a very high regard for him, one of the reasons being that he is one of the Ministers of this Government who realises that he does not always need a scowl on his face. People will respect him more because he behaves in a natural way. His pleasant manner will get him out of a lot of scrapes, though whether it will get him out of this one is another matter.
My main reason for speaking is that I was appalled when I saw the amendment put down by the Government. The suggestion is that the Government have no responsibility for law and order and that it is the Garda who are responsible. The amendment specifically notes with concern the increasing frequency of armed robbery and expresses confidence in the Garda Síochána to reverse this trend. I do not believe that it should be left to the Garda to deal with this matter. The Government must give a lead and I believe that the Government are not giving a lead.
I do not think debates of this type should be dealt with by somebody coming along and speaking off the top of his head. Possibly the Minister might have been caught. I thought he would have been allowed to move the amendment and then speak afterwards. He referred to an increase of 50 per cent in crime in 1973/74, 100 per cent in 1974/75 and 50 per cent in 1976/77. The figures show that in 1972 when Fianna Fáil were in office the figure for armed robberies was 132. Deputy Eileen Desmond mentioned this figure last night. In 1973 the figure dropped to 123. I am not saying that the figure dropped because of the change of Government. In the following year the figure rose to 153 and the next year it reached 186. There was no increase of 100 per cent or 50 per cent. There was a substantial increase but the increase came about over a period of 12 months. This year it appears that there will be an avalanche of this type of crime. I hope that it will not be so but we are approaching the Christmas period.
I listened to the Minister speaking on television the other night and I did not think he made a good point when he tried to shovel back a lot of the blame to his predecessor. Apart from that I did not find very much wrong with what he was saying. While he was talking, as if they were thumbing their noses at him, four armed robberies took place within a period of 15 or 20 minutes. It was timed so well that the robberies took place while the Minister was appearing on television. Is not this an awful state of affairs? It is a terrible thing that this can happen. It has happened all over the country as well as in the capital city.
I admit that the figures increased while the Government of which I was a member were in office but we did everything possible to combat this. From some of the things said and particularly because of the section dealing with justice in the Fianna Fáil manifesto, I thought there would be a tremendous effort made to stop this sort of thing. I believe this is as serious for this country, if not more so, than the troubles between people in the North. If we have reached the stage where armed robbery is accepted as a normal thing which goes on the back page of the newspaper, then we are in serious trouble. The amount stolen does not really matter; the fact is that an armed robbery can be carried out.
I blame a lot of this on the fact that apparently the courts are not doing as much as they should. Suspended sentences for people who bring a rifle or a revolver into a hall or a bank are ludicrous. It is ridiculous that this should be allowed to continue and I do not care what the reasons are. The one way in which the Minister can help is by bringing in legislation which will increase very substantially the penalties for armed robbery or attempted robbery. I do not envy the Minister his job. I do not envy any Minister for Justice. I would say without hesitation, though he lost his seat in the election, that the previous Minister for Justice was perhaps the most courageous man in the country in a very critical time. The present Minister is a courageous man and will need to be. His life will be under threat as soon as he does something that certain people do not like. Having taken up this office, the onus is on him to spearhead the necessary action to stop this racket and to ensure that those who are caught are punished in a way that others will recognise as something in which they do not want to be involved.
For a short time last night I watched a television programme showing that in America young boys on probation are brought into prison. They showed what the conditions are and some of the prisoners were very co-operative in that they were prepared to say what the effects were. Something like this might help here. We have now reached the stage where the youngsters who broke windows and wrecked telephone kiosks a few years ago now feel that they require a great deal of money to live the style of life to which they have become accustomed. Apparently the easiest way to get that money is to rob a bank or a post office, a shop or a petrol station.
Years ago when the position was not at all like it is now I stated in this House that I considered the onus was on the owners of property to make greater efforts to protect their property. I know that the banks, the post offices and supermarkets have given the impression that they are very humane people. They tell their staff not to get hurt if they are held up. The result is that those who commit crimes now appreciate that there is very little chance of opposition and once they get inside and are sure of getting away success is assured. I am not suggesting that we should have heroes in the banks, but we know that tackling the robbers on the spot would have a greater effect than anything we could do. The banks are at fault in not having alarms installed in safe places on their premises. Even if it only sounded outside the bank, the robbers would hear it and would know that it could be heard outside. At present all an armed robber has to do is to enter a bank and threaten to shoot the people responsible for the money.
The Minister and the other members of his party who took part in last year's debate must realise that there is little point in pretending now that the problem can be solved immediately. Last week the Taoiseach was asked how many school leavers were unemployed and his reply was that he had not got the information. He had the information last year and the year before. When Fianna Fáil were in Opposition they knew how to solve the problem of violent crimes.
It is wrong to suggest that the Garda voted for Fianna Fáil. The point is not who they voted for. The point is that they are responsible for maintaining law and order. A sneering reference was made tonight to the Coalition Government being a law and order Government. Does that mean that Fianna Fáil are not in favour of law and order? The amendment to the motion is a typical example of Government thinking. We have been told that violent crimes have been the subject of an inquiry and that the Department of Justice have not yet completed their report. Many of the answers to the problems should be contained in that report. The Minister said that there were still some questions to be answered, but I believe it is an urgent matter. The question of the number of gardaí who have been added to the force was dealt with in one way by the Minister and in another way by Deputy Harte. The Minister will agree, even allowing for the number who retire from the force each year, there has been a large increase in the force since he was last a Government Minister. Before he took office this year, preparations had already been made for a further substantial increase. It is not right to suggest that the numbers are not being increased because the necessary arrangements were not being made.
The Garda Review has been referred to as the source of certain information which was given to the Minister when he was in Opposition. There are some interesting articles in The Garda Review but nobody would try to claim that it was handed down to Moses from the Lord. I have been a trade union official for 30 years and I will give my opinion when making a case. My views may not be correct but it is for somebody else to correct them. Similarly, those who are trying to make a case for the Garda will make the best case they can. Therefore, it is foolish to use their argument in debating this issue. Since the National Coalition Government cannot claim credit for the decrease in the number of armed robberies when they took office, it would not be fair to blame the Government for the increase in armed robberies since they took office. Of course, there are people who feel that violent criminals would not be harshly dealt with by the Government. I believe the Minister is anxious to ensure that these criminals are apprehended.
Another statistic is that 70 per cent of armed robberies are committed by common criminals. The other 30 per cent are committed by common criminals who masquerade under paramilitary names. They are all doing it for a cause. Quite a number of armed robberies have been carried out with toy guns. According to the newspapers, some children in Dublin have been arrested and accused of taking £500 from a bank. A neighbour of mine told me he was pleased with the way in which the latest plane hijacking was dealt with and that we were nearing the time when it would not be safe to go out on a bicycle. We are reaching the stage where it will not be safe for anybody to show that he has even the smallest amount of money.
I urge the Minister to try to ensure that new methods of detection are introduced. Deputy Mrs. Desmond referred to investigations being carried out in other countries which give the police advance warning of crimes. The gentleman on the television with the Minister the other night was inclined to spin that story. I accept that in his time he was a very competent man but I do not think the solution put forward by him is as easy as all that. I agree there can be a chain of incidents which can be linked. For example, if a group carry out a number of raids there will be recognisable characteristics and, in that way, the robbers can be traced.
With the exception of the paramilitaries it appears that a lot of one-off raids are taking place. Somebody gets enough to keep him or to have a good holiday. It is possible that while the Garda are chasing around the city looking for the car used in the escape that he is heading off to lie in the sun in Spain or the Canary Islands. There should be a lot more vigilance to prevent that sort of thing happening.
One discouraging thing is that although the Garda up to 12 months ago had a high detection rate and convictions the amount of money recovered after the robberies was very small. This is a matter which should receive more attention. Money stolen is either hidden until the person responsible is released from prison or given to some friend. In either case it should be possible to watch those people to ensure that they do not benefit from the money. The figures given for the recovery of money stolen in armed raids over the last couple of years is in the region of 9 per cent and if that is true certainly crime seems to be paying as far as the armed raid industry is concerned.
I assume that the main reason for putting this motion forward is to bring to the notice of the Minister and the Government the Government's failure to keep a promise, to produce the necessary steps to have law and order which the National Coalition believed in, and which I hope this Government believe in, restored. Law and order refers just as much to preventing a person being robbed as it does to a person being attacked by unlawful organisations. The Minister should get out of his mind the idea that it is all right to say that the Government are not responsible, that the Garda are responsible and that they are doing their best. That is no answer to the problem and unless a lead is given by the Minister as head of the Department responsible to the Government, the House and the country, to do something about it, not just a penny halfpenny effort, we will find that between now and Christmas many more people will be having a good Christmas at the expense of their neighbours because that is what it amounts to. The Minister must do something very substantial quickly. Under no circumstances would I be prepared to support the amendment which suggests that this is not the responsibility of the Fianna Fáil Government who promised so much in this field but the responsibility of the Garda.
(Cavan-Monaghan): Our motion, tabled by Deputy Harte, our spokesman on Justice, expresses concern at the increase in frequency of armed robberies and deplores the failure of the Government to check the trend. The Minister's amendment agrees with the first part of our motion, notes with concern the increase in frequency of armed robberies but expresses confidence in the Garda to reverse the trend. In other words, the Minister for Justice concedes that armed robbery is increasing but he passes the buck to the Garda. He washes his hands in so far as checking the trend is concerned. It is the duty of any Government to uphold the law and to prevent crime and armed robbery. In particular, it is the duty of this Government because when in Opposition they complained bitterly about the escalation of crime. They complained about the failure of the previous Minister to tackle the problem of armed robberies and crime. Not alone did Fianna Fáil while in Opposition strongly protest against the failure of the National Coalition to tackle crime but they contested the election using that as a major plank on their platform. They said they would restore law and order, prevent crime and deal with criminals. They have failed to do that.
Without being personal, I should like to state that it was cowardly in the extreme of the Minister to hide behind the Garda in his amendment. It is the duty of the Minister to organise the Garda in such a way that they are equipped in numbers and time to tackle these crimes. Despite all the talk about the failure of the National Coalition to be generous on the question of overtime the record shows that since the Government took Office no worthwhile contribution has been made to overtime by the Minister. If there was an increase it was a paltry one. Any effort to regard that as a worthwhile contribution towards tackling crime must be regarded as an insult and not taken seriously. A record will be established this year for armed crime here. A record will be established for robbing banks, pay packets and post offices. This is a serious business and it is not good enough for the Minister to say that all the raiders had to do in Listowel was to remove a pane of glass and make off with £20,000. It is not sufficient for the Minister to say here that banks, business firms and presumably post offices should see to it that their premises are better protected, that they take even more precautions to ensure that their money is not stolen. It is not as simple as that because it is not a private matter.
I do not believe that our post offices are properly protected—and that is not a private matter—because there have been robberies of large sums of money when criminals simply got into the post office, waited for the vans to drive into the yards for the escort to disappear, then they took over the vans and got away with the money. Is there proper or any security on trains? We had a large robbery on a train going from Dublin to Sligo, and others. That is something the Minister cannot pass on to private undertakings; it is a semi-State body owned by the public, run by the public purse and which should be protected. The point I am making here is that this is not a private matter. It is not good enough to say that the banks should protect their own or their customers' money because that type of crime generates further crime. That type of crime provides criminals with the sinews of war and the arms and finance to perpetrate further crime. That is why it is so serious and something that cannot be treated simply as a private matter between the banks and the criminals. I agree with those who say that when we have reached the stage when a man or woman can walk into a bank, armed, or pretending to be armed and simply walk away with £20,000 or £30,000 something must be done about it. The bank officials are unarmed. I agree it would be lunacy and suicide on their part to attack armed men but, as Deputy Tully said, there must be a way out; it must be made difficult and dangerous for criminals to get this type of money. It must be made difficult for them to walk into a bank and get away with anything from a few hundred to several thousand pounds. The position at present is that that can be done.
There is a bigger onus on this than on the previous Government because the last Government conceded that money was difficult to come by. That may not have been an excuse for not preventing, if such were possible, these armed robberies. But this Government say there is no scarcity of money, that it can be got for this, that and the other thing. I do not want to spell out all the schemes this Government have thought up on which to spend money before they assumed office and since. I do not complain about them spending money in that way because they say it can be got without any further taxation. Here is a field in which money could and should be spent in order to prevent this type of crime in order to prevent criminals generating still further crime. That is the position at present.
I listened to the Minister's speech last evening and I did not hear anything from him that was new. I did not hear the Minister say that when he came into office he found that the equipment or machinery of the Garda Síochána to attack that sort of crime was inadequate or that he had taken the following steps, and then enumerate them. I did not even hear the Minister say that he had serious steps under consideration to introduce innovations to attack the type of crime about which I have been speaking. The whole emphasis of his speech was an attack more or less on banks not having taken adequate precautions to prevent such robberies. He mentioned the Listowel pane of glass on a number of occasions. I believe that banks, business houses, carriers of large sums of money—whether they be State or semi-State bodies or post offices—all should take adequate precautions.
It must be conceded that there is one type of precaution only that will deal with the armed robber, that is, armed force to see to it that he does not succeed. What use is there in people in a bank, in broad daylight, unarmed, making an attempt to hold off armed robbers? If the Minister disagrees with that view I should like to hear him or somebody on his behalf, now or in the future, spelling out how he proposes dealing with this type of crime because stopped it must be. If it is not stopped it will generate further crime; it will lead certain people to believe it is easy to get rich quickly and encourage others to embark on crime. That is the serious aspect of the problem we are now discussing. It is no longer news to hear that a bank has been robbed, that a post office has been robbed or that a huge payroll has been taken on its way to the factory. One almost expects to hear such news on the radio daily and it is a sorry state of affairs to have to admit.
Something must be done about it. The Minister, when in Opposition, seemed to have all the answers; while in Opposition he seemed to have grounds for complaint right across the board. Now that he is in power and has been Minister for Justice since July this year the end result will be that a record for armed robberies has been established this year.
I have always had every confidence in the Garda. I believe they will do everything humanly possible to check this trend provided they have sufficient numbers and sufficient time at their disposal. Some people might think it a waste of time to have gardaí on protection duty on these types of buildings. It is an expensive business but one that must be undertaken to check and reverse the trend of armed robberies. Everything should be done to make the Garda Síochána a happy and contented force. According to newspaper reports there seems to be further discontent in the force. I wish to refer briefly to the threat of the superintendent's clerks to go on strike. That is stemming from the Conroy Report which introduced overtime, a matter I spoke about in another debate some days ago. The clerks are doing a very difficult and skilled job. In addition to being policemen they must be lawyers or a least the equivalent of highly skilled law clerks. These men prepare the book of evidence in most involved cases and they hand this over to the State Solicitor. However, they are being paid considerably less than the man on the beat because the latter gets double pay for Sunday work and additional pay for Saturday work. I understand they are being paid much less——
The motion does not permit a debate on the clerks.
(Cavan-Monaghan): These men are getting substantially less than other members of the force even though they are doing most important work. I urge the Minister to see that the effective salaries are brought to the same level as those of other members of the force.
The Minister has a difficult task. Any Minister for Justice has an onerous job, sometimes an unpleasant one. However, that does not absolve him or the Government from tackling this scourge that has afflicted the country during the years and which has reached a record in 1977. It cannot be left to the banks or the firms. If the only loss that was involved was a loss of £20,000 to a bank or £10,000 to a manufacturing firm or a similar amount to a post office that would be bad enough but we know it does not end there. The money obtained in this way is put to work in the form of other crime. There is a new generation of people who believe that crime pays and that it is an easy way of getting money.
I deplore the spirit of the amendment. It is passing the buck. It is hiding behind the uniform of the Garda Síochána, a uniform that has been held in the highest esteem and respect for the past 50 years.
Before I begin my speech I wish to withdraw something I said last night. In passing I referred to someone in Fianna Fáil having a bad memory. It was said in the heat of the moment and was in bad taste on my part and I apologise to the Minister and to the other member of his party on whom it reflected. It was not a premeditated idea of mine.
With other Opposition speakers I wish to express my total disappointment regarding the way the Minister met this case. I should like to have heard what he had in mind about the rising crime rate and the low detection rate. Deputy Doherty who followed the Minister was the only Fianna Fáil speaker. The Deputy was a former member of the Garda Síochána but he had even less to say than the Minister. Even though he could have spoken for 30 minutes—every other Deputy except one availed in full of the time allotted to him—his contribution was less than nine minutes. He tried to confuse what I said last night.
I did not equate the Garda Síochána with subversives and far be it from me even to attempt to do that. I clearly pointed out the political manoeuvring of Fianna Fáil while in Opposition, exploiting the very serious threat being made against the State at that time and particularly against the then Minister for Justice. That was exploited by the present Minister when he was in opposition. His only contribution was that the Minister for Justice and the Government withdrew overtime for the gardaí, that if it was restored the high crime rate would decrease even though the Minister was telling the House that this was not the case. This theme ran through every contribution by the present Minister when in opposition, and I said that by doing that he won the support of every garda in the country and this was acknowledged by them. Many gardaí I have spoken to, even though they have been Fine Gael supporters, acknowledged they voted against the Government because of this issue. I was making the point that the Minister and Fianna Fáil succeeded in obtaining the almost impossible, by getting the gardaí to vote for candidates in the Fianna Fáil Party and in the same ballot boxes people who supported the Provisional IRA also voted for them.
Deputy Doherty went to great pains to misinterpret what I said. I do not want to be misinterpreted. I am referring most deliberately to the manoeuvring of Fianna Fáil on this sensitive issue, the emotional issue of overtime, even though a former Minister for Justice, Deputy O'Malley, before the change of Government in 1973, is on record here as stating that he was against overtime. Deputy O'Malley repeated this on many occasions. That is the point I was making.
I was also making the point that a Government in office at this time deserves the support not only of their backbenchers but also of members of the Opposition on matters of security. My argument will rest on that case. We pledge to the Minister that we will support him in every way possible but we will reserve the right to criticise. Despite his arguments last year in this House, as recorded in the Official Report, we now find the Minister cannot do the things about which he criticised the former Minister for Justice.
Does the Deputy subscribe to what his colleague said that the Garda Síochána should be an armed force?
Only one backbench member of Fianna Fáil made a contribution. I have only a very limited time to conclude my speech.
The Deputy interrupted last night.
Is the Deputy suggesting that the Garda Síochána be an armed force?
I do not want anyone to misunderstand my statement which Deputy Doherty tried to misrepresent. Like many other Deputies I received a photocopy of a letter from a person in Donegal which was sent to a Member of the other House apologising that he could not subscribe to the Fianna Fáil Party fund because he was a member of the Provisional IRA or Provisional Sinn Fein but stating he would do so in the name of another brother. Every Dáil Member in Donegal, including the Chair, Deputy Brennan must have received a copy of the letter. If someone subscribes to the Fianna Fáil Party it is easy for me to conclude that he must have voted for that party.
In the debate last night the Minister referred to the editorial in The Garda Review. Like other Deputies I receive it each month and discuss it with local Garda members and anybody else who wants to discuss it. It is a very good magazine but the editorial, like the editorials in any other magazine or newspaper, is the opinion of one person. When the pen is put down and the ink is dry that editorial is the opinion of one man The Minister parades that editorial and the Garda Review as being the authentic voice of every member of the Garda Síochána while he knows, and I know, that that is not true. It is the point of view put forward by one man and it should be seen in that context.
Last night the Minister went to great pains to say the banks were letting down the country, that they did not tighten their belts, that they were making it easy for robbers to invade their premises and take money. That is true in some cases. It is very strange that those of us who are members of local authorities know that if a person owns a hotel, boarding house, bingo hall, a dance hall or any place where a crowd may gather, before he gets a licence to operate, that person must have a fire inspection carried out by the local fire officer and unless the premises are passed he will not get the licence.
Why does the Minister pass the buck to the banks? Can he not bring in legislation and say "We will not give you permission to operate unless you pass our security examination"? With all this talk of crime and the high rate of crime in the South, the number of crimes committed in the North at present has fallen by 33? per cent. I had a friend in Belfast examine the Chief Constable's report for 1976. I was amazed at what they had achieved there. What have they done? They have given grants to firms and factories to provide security officers. They have given grants to those businesses who want to develop by capital expansion and protect themselves from a security point of view.
Is there any imagination in this House to think along those lines? No, no imagination whatever. We go rambling on and blame one another. If the Minister brings in legislation and shows us that he is serious about coming to terms with subversive organisations, he will have our support. It must be remembered that not all the people who have robbed banks are subversives. There are some people who robbed banks, and are having a good time and who fly to the Canary Islands for a holiday with their wives and families. We all know that these things are happening but the Minister is doing very little about them.
From the Chief Constable's report the average rate of armed robberies in the North during 1976 was 69 per month and the average this year is 46 per month, a drop of 33? per cent. Any firm which had been robbed or bombed and has not taken full advantage of the grant service is not properly covered and are told "You have to insure yourselves against this". Is it not about time that this sort of thing was dealt with in this House? Those grants in the North are available to any company which employs more than ten people. This shows imagination and is coming to terms with robberies and crimes, and the result is shown in the Chief Constable's report. There is a grant available for every ten people employed up to 100 or any additional part of 100. The Minister should note that.
There seems to be a lot of confusion about where we stand on this motion. As Deputy Fitzpatrick said, I believe this Fianna Fáil amendment is one where they can hide from the remarks of the Opposition. I would rather if the Minister had allowed the amendment stand. I would have liked to have heard more Fianna Fáil Deputies contributing.
We could not. The Deputy knows he is being hypocritical about this.
I beg to differ. Deputy Doherty got to his feet at about 7.20 p.m. and sat down before 7.30 p.m. He could have spoken until 7.50 p.m.
That was only one Deputy.
The Opposition did not give way to anybody.
Does the Deputy believe the Garda should be an armed force, like his colleague?
(Cavan-Monaghan): Who said that the Garda should be armed?
Deputy Fitzpatrick said it.
(Cavan-Monaghan): I said no such thing.
The Deputy is on the record.
Does the Deputy want me to answer his question?
Yes.
The party of which I am a member under its former name Cumann na nGaedhael——
Deputy Fitzpatrick said we should treat violence with violence.
(Cavan-Monaghan): I never said that the Garda should be armed and I deny it.
——despite all the threats of members of the Deputy's party, decided to have an unarmed Garda force. People from outside the country said it was too ambitious to have an unarmed Garda force facing all the realities of the time. It was this party which took the decision to have an unarmed Garda.
Deputy Fitzpatrick is on the record as saying that it should be an armed force.
(Cavan-Monaghan): I never said that. There is an Army in the country.
The Deputy said that and it can be proved.
(Cavan-Monaghan): I never said that. On a point or order, I said that force would have to be treated by force. There is an Army and they have——
(Interruptions.)
Deputy Harte has two-and-a-half minutes left.
I want to say why I brought this motion before the House. Small business people, men and women, young and old, are nervous about keeping petty cash in their homes, not alone in the urban areas of Dublin, about which we have heard a great deal, but in the rural areas including the Deputy from Mayo's area. People are afraid to keep money in their houses in case it is taken from them and they are afraid not to have money in the house——
The people in Mayo do not want an armed Garda.
Look, big mouth, go outside or speak some other time. People are afraid to keep money in the house because if raiders break in they will be beaten up if there is no money available.
We do not want the Garda armed.
Catholic churches in Dublin, in particular Mount Argus, decided that it was necessary for the church authorities to keep six full time security officers during the last Mass on Sundays in case radios are stolen from cars. Outside the Milltown golf course nine stereos were stolen from cars last Saturday night week. The cars were opened, radios stolen and the cars were locked again. This is the increased crime rate about which we are protesting and saying to the Minister "For God's sake implement the survey which the former Government commissioned and give us a good police force and then a new deal." Why must the survey stay in the Department of Justice for six months when we know there is unrest in the Garda, that something will have to be done about it and that it will not go away if we close our eyes? These things are necessary if the rate of crime is to be decreased and if increased protection is to be given to the general public so that all our families can go to bed at night knowing they will not be robbed before the morning and that our sons and daughters will not be molested, raped or attacked. That is what this is all about.
(Interruptions.)
After four years of neglect.
It is not about passing the buck. We are in this together. We cannot expect success unless we have a contented police force which gets the full support of the Government and of the Opposition, is appreciated for what it stands for and is given the encouragement to go on. That police force is asking today, asked yesterday and has been asking for the last six months: "Where is the police survey which the Coalition Government commissioned for the updating and modernisation of the police force?" I said last night that the Minister had not met the Garda Commissioner——
There were never so many gardaí on the streets.
——and he obliquely dismissed that remark. I am in no position to state categorically that he met him, but I am asking the Minister now if he met the Garda Commissioner officially and formally to discuss security matters, and if he did, on how many times in the last six months.
I met him.
The Deputy's time is up.
One would never think the Deputy had been on this side of the House until six months ago.
Will Deputy Fitzpatrick withdraw his statement about the armed Garda force?
(Cavan-Monaghan): I never said it and the Deputy knows that perfectly well.
How stands the House in relation to this amendment?
We do not propose to put this to a vote.
(Interruptions.)
Amendment agreed to.
Motion, as amended, agreed to.
The Dáil adjourned at 8.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 24th November, 1977.