Confidence in the Minister for Justice: Motion

The Taoiseach

I move:

That Dáil Éireann has confidence in the Minister for Justice, Helen McEntee TD.

We will debate a lot of things over the next two hours, but I want to reiterate that our thoughts are first and foremost with the schoolchildren and their carer who were so brutally and senselessly attacked last Thursday week. Two remain in hospital this evening and we hope they make a recovery. I also want to restate my gratitude to those who risked their lives to save other lives and to thank the gardaí and front-line, council, transport and retail workers, of all nationalities, for their response to the riots that ensued. Their response demonstrates the power of people working together and I believe they, and the public at large, want us in this House to work together to make our capital’s streets safer. The issue of confidence is a distraction from that important work.

I have known the Minister, Deputy Helen McEntee, for nearly 20 years. I worked on her by-election campaign after the sad death of her father Shane and I had the privilege of appointing her as Minister with responsibility for European affairs in 2017, when I first became Taoiseach, to work alongside the Minister, Deputy Coveney, and me on the important issue of Brexit. Helen is trustworthy, sincere, intelligent and loyal. She is someone I turn to in difficult times and is never afraid to show her mettle when challenged, as she has in the past week or two. I am thankful for her work as Minister for Justice, carrying on my party’s tradition of law and order, alongside a wide agenda of reform, as well as cracking down on crime, helping victims and improving access to justice. Her record speaks for itself.

Recruitment to An Garda Síochána is recovering post pandemic, with up to 800 new recruits entering Templemore this year alone. She has negotiated the highest ever budget for the Garda, over 20% higher than when she started in office in 2020. We now have the largest fleet of vehicles in the organisation’s history, with around 100 extra Garda cars and vans due by the end of this year. Gardaí will soon have body-worn cameras for the first time, with the first phase due to start in Dublin early next year. This will improve their safety, as well as evidence gathering.

The Minister, Deputy McEntee, is introducing facial recognition technology to enable retrospective viewing of CCTV footage, freeing up thousands of hours of Garda time. She has already doubled the maximum sentence for assault causing harm, increased the sentence for conspiracy to murder from ten years to life and increased the sentence for assaulting a Garda or emergency worker from seven to 12 years. She is also working to crack down on the proceeds of organised crime. The number of gang-related murders has fallen significantly on her watch. She is working on the overhaul of archaic licensing and night-time entertainment laws, reforming our defamation laws, modernising our outdated incitement to hatred and hate crime laws and creating a new dedicated family court. No Minister has done more than she has to combat violence against women. She has also appointed more judges and has plans to expand prison capacity.

I know we need to ensure people are safe and feel safe in Dublin city centre. I have committed, as Taoiseach, that the full resources of the State will be available to the Minister and Garda Commissioner, and I will make sure that there is leadership and co-ordination from my office in that regard. We need a tough response to the riots. That is clear. We also need to understand why some people reacted in the way they did and to what extent the riots were orchestrated by subversive elements. These riots do not reflect the wishes of the vast majority of people in Dublin’s north inner city. I know that. Of the 48 people arrested, only four were resident in Dublin 1.

In politics we will always have disagreements, but there also needs to be a sense of proportion and balance and unity in times of real crisis. The Sinn Féin motion of no confidence was a political stunt, unnecessary and counter-productive. People want us to work together to improve law and order, not just in Dublin but across the country. Removing the justice Minister and the Garda Commissioner, which is Sinn Féin policy, would be a victory for those who engaged in and incited violence on our streets. It would embolden them to strike again. That alone should be sufficient reason to vote with the Government tonight.

I would not have confidence in a Sinn Féin member becoming Minister for Justice. I would not have confidence in a Sinn Féin member, as Minister for Justice, proposing the appointment of the next Garda Commissioner. Sinn Féin has talked a lot about horrific events unfolding in the Middle East, and rightly so, but it will not acknowledge war crimes that may have happened in this country, crimes committed in our name by terrorists the Irish people always rejected, crimes like the Enniskillen and Warrington bombings, in which children were killed. Their justification is reminiscent: it was not deliberate; they were not being targeted; they were just collateral damage. Nor will it acknowledge crimes like the murders of Garda Jerry McCabe, Patrick Kelly and Brian Stack. Of course, Sinn Féin politicians, when asked, and they are not asked often, will use every word imaginable to avoid admitting that these were crimes and that the perpetrators were criminals who should be dishonoured, brought to justice and punished. That is why we cannot have a Sinn Féin Taoiseach, a Sinn Féin justice Minister and a Sinn Féin defence Minister, in the next Government or any Government.

The events of 23 November were a real shock and were not something we are used to in Ireland, thankfully. We need to make sure these were exceptional events and I vow that we will. For those who are listening at home, I encourage you to come to Dublin city over the festive period to support our businesses and show solidarity with city centre communities. There is an increased Garda presence and it is highly visible. We will be doing everything we can to make sure you are safe, feel safe at all times and get home safely.

Mar a dúirt mé an tseachtain seo caite, mar Rialtas, beimid gan staonadh ó thaobh ár saoránaigh agus daoine a chosaint. Beidh gardaí ar na sráideanna agus déanfaidh siad aon rud atá ag teastáil ionas go mothóidh daoine sábháilte. As I said last week, as a Government we will be relentless in protecting our citizens and defending our people and their property. Gardaí will be on the streets and visible and will do whatever it takes to make sure people are safe and feel safe.

A Cheann Comhairle, it is an honour for me to express my full confidence in my friend and colleague Deputy Helen McEntee. I commend this motion to the House.

Minister for Foreign Affairs (Deputy Micheál Martin)

I will also share time with the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin.

The recent violence in Dublin could not be more serious. It cannot be tolerated in our democratic Republic. It represents a challenge to all of us here to show we have a politics which is capable of treating serious issues with urgency and with a focus on action. The sad reality is this debate has nothing to do with the issues of policing in Dublin and divisive radicalisation. It is yet again solely about Sinn Féin pursuing its cynical and aggressive approach to opposition, an approach which puts electoral politics first in everything. It is an approach which seeks to intimidate opponents and journalists alike. Quite frankly, this cynicism and aggression continues to directly undermine the ability of our democratic institutions and democratically elected representatives to work constructively on issues.

There is not even the faintest hint of sincerity in the attacks Sinn Féin has launched on the Minister, Deputy McEntee, in the past two weeks. At the core of Sinn Féin's attack is the claim by Deputy McDonald that everyone could see the disorder coming and that the Minister did nothing in the face of demands for action. Deputy McDonald has a privilege open to no other Member of this House; she can set the political agenda at the start of most sitting days in Leaders' Questions. She has the freedom, almost unique in the democratic world, of the daily opportunity to raise any issue she wants. If she thinks something dangerous is imminent, she can stand here and demand action with the certainty it will receive widespread coverage. Yet in spite of her claim the dogs in the street knew a riot was about to happen, the Dáil record shows that in the past three months, during Leaders' Questions, she never once raised the violence she now says was obviously about to break out.

Deputy McDonald is one of the Deputies for the north inner city of Dublin. She claims to have been aware of a rising tide of extremism, yet did not think it was important enough to come in here as a party leader and demand action. If Deputy McDonald was concerned about gardaí being abused in O'Connell Street, all she needed to do was consult her front bench, which includes unique expertise on such behaviour. If she had thought criminal elements in the north inner city were a threat, she might have been more open when answering questions about her personal support for the political career of a notorious violent criminal, a person with direct links to the nastiest gang ever seen in this city.

After many years of close association with an organisation which Deputy McDonald's own constituency organiser, and a former adviser to Michelle O'Neill, last week told the High Court was criminal and terroristic, Sinn Féin continues to demand that basic standards accepted by every other party not be applied to its behaviour. It is true that in the past 12 months, there has been an attempt by Sinn Féin to claim to be on the side of law and order. However, the defining characteristic of the party's approach to policing, on both sides of the Border, has been its conditionality. Support has been given and withdrawn depending on what suits that party and whether one of its own members is being investigated.

The truth is we can all see through the opportunism and cynicism at the heart of this debate. It is a terrible statement about Sinn Féin's approach to serious issues that its first impulse after the violence was to see how to get political advantage out of it. In the appalling words of Deputy O'Reilly, which I hope she will have the decency to withdraw, Sinn Féin decided to "take out" the Minister, Deputy McEntee. For a party with Sinn Féin's connections to call for an opponent to be taken out is not something we should allow to be normalised.

There is no doubt but there are extremist elements, a Cheann Comhairle, who exploited the tragic stabbings on Parnell Square. As they have done in many other instances, they have sought to promote the idea of rising conflict and the need for people to take direct action. They seek to exploit and develop fears and turn them into the types of aggressive divisions which have been common in far too many countries. Throughout the world, studies have shown we are living in an age when polarisation is happening at a rapid pace, because it is being actively encouraged by forces on the left and the right. Political opponents are no longer being presented as people you disagree with but as enemies and bad-faith actors. Separate information bubbles are feeding this extremism and undermining the ability to have political debates focused on serious discussions rather than angry arguments. There is simply no way of denying this is happening in Ireland as well. The language of "take back our country", "patriots defend our society" and other such far-right language only needs to find a small audience for it to cause very serious damage. Where the aggression steps over the line and becomes threatening, we have to have the laws and enforcement necessary to act. Just as important, we have to speak out against those who seek to promote and then exploit division.

It also must be said the atmosphere which feeds aggression and division is much wider and there are those here who contribute to it. Nearly every person here who holds ministerial office has seen this in the rising number of cases of verbal abuse and intimidation. Look at how casually members of some parties accuse others of being traitors and betraying the nation and you will see people contributing to a dangerous atmosphere. Only this weekend, the People Before Profit group distributed leaflets in Cork city centre which had the headline "The police are not on our side". The previous weekend, hundreds stood by as the headquarters of Department of Foreign Affairs were vandalised. In recent weeks, we have also seen loud abuse directed at members of the Government on the issue of Gaza, in spite of our active and almost unmatched support for the people of Gaza. If you promote aggression towards your opponents, if you sit in Parliament but claim the legitimacy of the street, if you ignore abuse by your own supporters against your opponents and independent journalists, then you are directly feeding the atmosphere of aggressive and divisive activism we should all be opposing.

Our thoughts are first and foremost with those who were shockingly attacked last month, namely, the children and their carer, and we should all unite behind the work of An Garda Síochána and what it did that week. The Minister, Deputy McEntee, and Commissioner Harris have been fully open and candid about what happened in Dublin. They have shown their personal commitment to taking action. I and my party will be voting confidence in the Minister today because we have far more faith in her commitment to action than we do in the cynical politics of personal aggression being shown by Sinn Féin.

Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media (Deputy Catherine Martin)

Táim sásta an deis seo a fháil chun labhairt ar son an vóta muiníne san Aire, Helen McEntee. I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak today in support of the motion of confidence in the Minister for Justice, Deputy McEntee. First, I want to say my thoughts are with the children and their carer who were subjected to that horrific attack in Dublin on 23 November.

Táim ag smaoineamh orthu go léir, go háirithe na páistí a bhí gortaithe. I again thank the first responders and An Garda Síochána for their selfless and brave actions on that day and in dealing with the appalling events that unfolded that evening. They represented the true values of our democratic State. It is important for us as parliamentarians to acknowledge how we as a nation must continue to hold those values dear, particularly now, in the face of an onslaught of online disinformation and misinformation, and of harmful extremist content that preys on the vulnerable and incites hatred and violence. This is a real threat to our democracy, to the rule of law, to peace and to the very fabric of our State.

Now is not the time to play petty party politics. It is not the time to stoke division or seek political instability and it is certainly not the time to look for headlines and heads. Now is the time for unity of purpose across all parties. It is a time for us to work together in the Chamber to support all efforts to protect the key pillars of our democracy. That is exactly what the Government and the Minister, Deputy McEntee, are doing. There has been a robust response to those violent events in Dublin on 23 November. More than 30 people have been brought before the courts and as Garda investigations continue, we will undoubtedly see more. A high-visibility policing plan is under way in the city centre, which will provide a reassuring visible presence. It will continue throughout the Christmas period and is supported by additional overtime provided by the Minister, drawing in public order units and the dog and mounted units.

In addition, let us not forget that the Minister has enacted and is enacting significant reforms to support our gardaí, protect our citizens and make our country a safer place for all. She has increased investment in An Garda Síochána to the highest ever level, allowing for sustained, ongoing investment into Garda recruitment. Numbers in Templemore continue to increase and we are on track to have more than 700 new recruits into the college in 2023. Thus far this year, 237 new gardaí have been recruited, with a further 151 to be attested later this month. A new Garda recruitment competition will open again in the coming weeks.

The Minister has been a proactive Minister for Justice, driving the modernisation of our laws to counteract hate crime and hate speech. That, coupled with our efforts to tackle the issue of disinformation and harmful content online, is fundamental to addressing the growth of violent extremism and the protection of our liberal, democratic values. The Minister is taking measures to tackle the grave issue of domestic, sexual and gender-based violence in our country. Among these, is the establishment of a statutory agency dedicated to tackling and reducing domestic, sexual and gender-based violence and supporting victims and survivors. A huge body of important work is under way in this area, under her stewardship, that needs to continue.

There is progress too in other areas of important legislation that will ultimately impact positively on all our daily lives in a wide variety of ways. The Criminal Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act contains measures targeting violent and organised crime and violence against gardaí. It also has a particular focus on domestic, sexual and gender-based violence. This includes impactful measures, such as the increase in the maximum penalty for assault causing harm, one of the most commonly prosecuted violent offences, from five to ten years. The Sex Offenders (Amendment) Act improves post-release supervision of sex offenders and provides for electronic tagging. Coco's Law criminalises the distribution of intimate images without consent. The recording devices Bill provides for body-worn cameras to protect Garda members, automatic number plate recognition to detect crime, and greater use of CCTV. The landmark Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill provides for the establishment of a community safety partnership in every part of the country.

This is only a small sample of the important work being done by the Minister and her Department. So much more work is under way. This is progress and action in the interests of the Irish people. These are clear, practical solutions that will have a positive impact on our daily lives. They are not soundbites or political games but real, practical change that will make a long-lasting difference. I support and have full confidence in the Minister for Justice. Tá mo mhuinín agus mo dhlúth-thacaíocht ag an Aire, an Teachta McEntee, agus guím gach rath ar a cuid oibre.

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald

The streets of Dublin's north inner city have not been safe for a long time. The area is scourged by open drug dealing, drug-taking, on-street nuisance drinking, and constant and threatening antisocial behaviour. It is in this abnormal atmosphere that people go about their daily lives. People make their journeys to work and parents do the school drop-offs with the ever-present hum of menace, risk and an overriding lack of personal safety. Over the course of Fine Gael’s 12 years in government, people have been robbed of their safety. Garda stations have been closed or put on reduced hours. Community Garda numbers have been decimated. Gone are the days of the garda on the beat, which is the very bedrock of effective community policing. This has contributed to a general feeling of lawlessness and an unsafe environment. The response of the Government has been, at best, to skirt around the problem and, at worst, to completely abandon these communities.

The school community of Gaelscoil Choláiste Mhuire recognises well that low, relentless hum of danger and lack of safety. The children, parents and staff live with it every day. Thursday, 23 November started like any other day, but it turned out to be a day they will never forget. None of us will. Three small children and crèche manager, Leanne Flynn, were stabbed in broad daylight outside their school. Leanne bravely stood between the attacker and the children, risking her own life to save their young lives. Courageous members of the public, people who represent all that is good about Dublin, stepped in to apprehend the perpetrator and certainly prevented further harm.

What occurred in the aftermath of this horrific attack constituted a catastrophic and unprecedented collapse in public safety. Control of Dublin city centre was lost to a mob, which sought to exploit the attacks to sow hate and division. As those poor children and Leanne received emergency treatment in hospital, there was mayhem and destruction on the streets of our capital city. Garda cars, buses, and a Luas tram were burned out. Gardaí were assaulted, emergency responders were targeted, shops were looted and retail workers, transport workers and citizens were terrified. Everyone who stood their ground that evening deserves our praise and our thanks. Gardaí in particular are to be commended. They came under sustained attack. They were very much in the way of danger.

This riot was entirely predictable. It was coming. The instigators did not try to hide their intent. It was openly orchestrated immediately following the attacks, but there was no plan to respond. According to the Garda Representative Association, GRA, no central instruction was issued to gardaí. They were left to organise themselves on WhatsApp. It is clear this riot was compounded by the fact that not enough gardaí were at hand in order to support their colleagues. To be clear, I have full confidence in An Garda Síochána. I have zero confidence in the Minister for Justice. In any other walk of life, or in any other organisation, the person presiding over such a colossal failure would be sacked. Those who vote confidence in the Minister are endorsing grave failure.

Over the past 12 days, much has been said about the riots but not enough has been said about what happened earlier that day - the stabbing of three small children and Leanne Flynn. The gravity and trauma of this horrific attack has not been fully acknowledged or fully understood. It took nearly two weeks for the Government to reach out to the school community.

(Interruptions).

Deputy Micheál Martin

Rubbish.

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald

Many parents tell me they feel forgotten, vulnerable and afraid. They are angry.

Incredible work was done to get the children back to school. I acknowledge múinteoir Pól Hansard and his staff.

It has to be asked, in the immediate aftermath of this attack, where was the emergency response from the Government? Only days after the stabbing of three of their classmates, and as Leanne Flynn lay in her hospital bed, it was back to business as usual for the area surrounding Gaelscoil Choláiste Mhuire - strangers street drinking and not a garda in sight.

Deputy Simon Harris

We have the pictures. It is despicable.

An Ceann Comhairle

Nobody interrupted anybody on this side of the House.

The Taoiseach

I would like to make a point of order.

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald

Those who live-----

An Ceann Comhairle

What is the point of order?

Deputy David Cullinane

It is not a point of order.

The Taoiseach

It is a point of order. The leader of the Opposition has quite disgracefully misled the Dáil.

Those who live and work here, who walk these streets, who have grown up in Dublin and who love this city, know the score - the broken lives, broken spirits, broken health and bodies of the walking wounded. The Government refers to them as vulnerable. I call them the brutalised, the forgotten, failed by government after government, by a system and a State that grinds them up and allows them to fall through the cracks and then wrings its hands in faux outrage when we reach a horrific flashpoint. I refer to those who call the streets their home. Governments should be held to account for the hardship that these people endure. Small children should never have to witness it or to shoulder that traumatising burden. These people congregate in huddles in the city centre. They have nowhere to go once the hostels chuck them out in the morning. They gather every day at the Garden of Remembrance opposite Gaelscoil Choláiste Mhuire. Each and every one of them has their own heartbreaking story. They hang around.

On Thursday, 23 November, a random individual was hanging around the school. It was nothing new or particularly alarming there, but on this day, a knife was produced, wounds were inflicted, blood was spilt, children screamed, sirens wailed, word spread and parents, with their hearts in their mouths, ran to the school. The panic was overwhelming. Their fear was whether their little one was hurt. For three families, the news was not good. The nightmare of every parent came to pass. For Leanne Flynn's family, a horrifying reality dawned.

Let me be clear. The only person responsible for that stabbing nightmare is the perpetrator. Those responsible for the riot are the rioters. But it is the responsibility of the Minister for Justice to ensure that our streets are safe and to ensure An Garda Síochána have the resources it needs. She failed abysmally in these responsibilities, with very dire consequences. Bhí an tAire, An Teachta McEntee, i gceannas nuair a thit an phóilíneacht inár bpríomhchathair as a chéile. Ní féidir léi fanacht sa phost. Caithfidh sí imeacht. For a very long time now, our streets have not been safe. Despite communities and businesses crying it from the rooftops, there has been no step change or urgency from the Government. That change must start now. Even in these darkest of times, I believe we can turn the tide back in favour of community. With the right policies and determination from the Government, confidence in public safety can be restored and strengthened. Our communities and the gardaí who we send out to uphold public safety deserve that. It is time to make public safety the priority, to give gardaí the support and resources they need, to put more gardaí on the streets and to invest in strong, compassionate communities.

The Taoiseach says we are politicising this issue. Let me say it clearly: There is nothing more political than keeping people safe. In fact, the first responsibility of any government worthy of the name is to keep its citizens safe. To make sure this happens, we need a major change of direction. The Minister, Deputy McEntee, has proven incapable of providing the leadership, direction and the purpose needed to make our streets and communities safe. The Minister's position is untenable and she must go.

Deputies

Hear, hear.

Deputy Pa Daly

We have no choice but to bring this motion. We have no choice because the problems are so serious. They have been raised but they were not addressed in an adequate way. We highlighted the problems that existed and continue to exist within criminal justice. We said there was a crisis with Garda morale and the Minister said there was no crisis. We said she needs to complete the new regulations for the Garda Reserve to improve the Garda presence on the street, something demanded by retailers, workers who feel unsafe, shoppers and gardaí, but we are still waiting.

The various representatives for justice from Fine Gael who stood here maintained that the target of 1,000 new gardaí this year would be met when it was clear from early summer that the target was unachievable. Maintaining that mantra damaged Government credibility. The number of serving guards has decreased year on year over the past four years. I know and accept that morale in An Garda Síochána is in crisis. Many guards are buying back their pensions in order to leave early. Resignations are at an all-time high. Coming down the tracks is the cohort of gardaí who joined in the mid-1990s when recruitment reopened after the intake of guards had slowed in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In the medium term we need to recruit, including from the new communities. That is accepted by An Garda Síochána. In the short term, we need to allow Garda management to recruit reservists, which they have not been able to do since 2017. There has been no urgency in helping gardaí to achieve this and the Government has not listened, or if it has, it has not delivered.

We could have waited for Fine Gael to make a decision like it did with two of its previous three justice Ministers, but it was not going to do so this time. If we thought it would hasten change, bring more presence on the streets or increase Garda numbers and make people feel safe in their communities - retailers, emergency services, workers and gardaí - then we would, but we do not have confidence that that is going to happen after 13 years of Fine Gael in government. There are fewer gardaí on the streets and fewer Garda stations. In order to solve the problems with morale, the loss of control and resources, the Government and the Minister need to acknowledge the problems. Instead, Government spokespersons have engaged in distraction and delusion. Instead of solid proposals we heard a drum roll of predictably tougher legislation, strangely, the need for clarity on the use of force and, chillingly, the bizarre proposal to cut social welfare, as reported from the parliamentary party meeting, none of which could have prevented the unprecedented crime or the loss of control that happened on 23 November. All of that has convinced me that this Government is incapable of dealing with and solving the problems on our streets. It is incapable of making people safe and the consequences are what we saw last Thursday week. It is clear that the Government is out of touch, has lost credibility on these issues and, crucially, is not listening, and the Minister is not listening. We are saying we have had enough and we will vote no confidence in the Minister for Justice.

Deputy Louise O'Reilly

Our capital city has an undeniable buzz, community spirit and rich history and I am very proud to be a Dub. However, there is no denying that parts of the city centre have become dangerous, derelict and rundown in recent years. This did not happen by accident. This is a whole-of-government failure, but it has become encapsulated by the continual failure on the part of the Minister for Justice. The recent riots and the loss of control of Dublin city centre is part of a broader failure on this Minister's part. The past year has seen a litany of violent attacks which have highlighted how bad the situation has become. The situation has been broadcast around the country and to the world. Indeed, parents warn their children of the dangers of Dublin city in the same way that embassies are now warning their citizens. These are just the stories which lead the news cycle. Countless acts of violence go unreported and unrecorded. Is it any wonder, with 500 fewer gardaí on the streets? What is the point in calling the Garda when you know that the station is understaffed and the Garda will not be able to send someone out? It gives me no pleasure to highlight these issues to the Minister or to point out that Dublin city centre has not felt safe for a long time. I have no faith that things will get better with this Minister or under this Government.

This is not something to be laughed at. I am glad the Minister can knock some sport out of it.

Deputy Simon Harris

Are you going to take her out Louise?

Deputy Louise O'Reilly

I have no faith that things will get better with the Minister or with the Government. Its record speaks loudly and the fact that there are nearly 500 fewer gardaí on the beat in Dublin city is a measure of its lack of sincerity. For years, Sinn Féin and others have proposed solutions and called for these issues to be addressed. We have called for investment in the Garda, increased numbers and equipment and investment in disadvantaged communities, youth clubs, sports facilities, jobs clubs and so on. We have called for investment in education, further education, supporting employment and re-employment.

Umpteen times, business owners in the city centre have shared with me their concerns about the impact of this everyday crime and violence on their businesses. Shoplifting, break-ins and threats to staff are sadly all too common. For over a year now, some Dublin city-based business groups have been requesting a meeting with the Minister regarding crime and antisocial behaviour, but it was only in the immediate aftermath of the riots that the meeting was granted.

Workers have shared with me their experience of violence, abuse and harassment as they work in the city centre. This is happening while they are in work, when they are going to work and when they are coming home from work. Does this sound like a safe city? Does it sound like a city the Minister has engaged with? Does it sound like a city the Government cares about? It does not to me, not on the basis of current and past performance. It is for that reason that we have no confidence in this Minister.

Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin

After careful consideration of the track record of this Government in the areas of crime, policing and addressing the root causes of crime, the Labour Party will not be supporting the Government's motion.

We did not rush to political point scoring in the aftermath of 23 November. We were traumatised when the news filtered through of a vicious assault on innocent schoolchildren and their carer. That shock was compounded when we saw images of law and order breaking down in the centre of our beloved city. We did not look for political advantage. We did not join the calls for the Minister or the Commissioner to resign, as our first instinct was to focus on the far right and the depleted and demoralised state of An Garda Síochána. The time for political accountability has now arrived.

It is important in a debate as partisan as this to point to the Minister’s successes. Her advancement of the domestic, sexual and gender based violence agency legislation is to her credit. Her support of Deputy Howlin’s Coco’s Law initiative to criminalise the nonconsensual distribution of intimate images, her move to tackle stalking and sexual harassment and her prioritisation of hate crime legislation, are all to her credit. These measures are dismissed by some in this Chamber as culture war issues. Tell that to the parents of cyberbullied suicidal children, to women who have been sexually assaulted, raped or beaten to a pulp in their own homes or to those who live under the constant fear of being attacked for who they are. The Minister has had her successes and we have worked with her to achieve them.

Her failures are not hers alone. They must be shared across Government and the Government needs to take responsibility for them. It is a cross-government failure to properly resource An Garda Síochána to bring its numbers up to a level needed to match the increase in the size of the Irish population and the changing nature of modern policing. It makes no sense that we have a Garda force at the same level it was 20 years ago, with a population which has grown by more than 1 million people in that time. There is a lack of civilianisation in the force. It is 20% here compared with 50% in the UK, leading to more gardaí doing more administration than ever before.

It is a cross-government failure to not tackle the morale, recruitment and retention issue in An Garda Síochána. The statistics do not lie in terms of Garda resignations in 2023. It stands at 142 at the end of October this year. This is five times the number of 2013. The gardaí threatened industrial action in October, which was averted at the last minute. The Minister still insists on policing this city on overtime. The promised 1,000 extra gardaí have not materialised, with only 633 trainees entering Templemore this year and an intake from January being brought forward to Christmas in an apparent attempt to massage the figures. Even in this debate, the Taoiseach has said the number is 800, the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, has said the number is 700 and the Garda Commissioner has said the number is 633.

It is a cross-government failure to properly tackle the far right. There has been no myth-busting public information campaign to dispel the lies they are propagating. It appears the Government feels they will wear themselves out, that is, if they close down libraries or burn out tents or riot at the Dáil or block the port tunnel or place blockades on roads or spread misinformation online or protest at accommodation centres, they will eventually get tired. They did not; they just set O'Connell Street on fire. The Minister's failure is threatening the safety of everyone they target. She also has isolated the Minister, Deputy O’Gorman, and has given him zero cross-departmental support. Now, at the point when people of colour are feeling most uneasy about wandering the streets in Dublin, the Government has decided it can no longer put a roof over the heads of people seeking international protection. What a colossal failure.

It is a cross-governmental failure to engage in genuine reform of our prison system and drug policy or to properly tackle the causes of social exclusion. Our prison system is vastly overcrowded. In September, the Inspector of Prisons criticised the degrading conditions in some overcrowded prisons. Governors tell me that too many prisoners are there because of addiction issues or mental health challenges. The Minister's response is that we need more prison spaces.

On drug reform she has shown no appetite to grab the historic opportunity offered by the Citizens' Assembly on Drugs Use. Some 6,400 people have been charged with possession for personal use this year alone. This is a complete waste of Garda time but the Minister has shown no vision for change. Disgracefully, she has made no effort to open the medically supervised injection facility, even as a mobile service, because the lives lost to addiction are not a high priority for the Government.

Her rhetoric over the past 12 days gives the Labour Party no confidence that she has a real interest in addressing the root causes of crime. There are young people on the edges, seeking empowerment and respect who are vulnerable to drug gangs or hate movements that know what buttons to press. The Minister has handed them more material by saying things like they need a good, honest beating and to have social welfare deducted from them. She also used the term "scumbags". There not a youth worker in the city who does not think that these comments have all made their jobs more difficult. Would a tax evading farmer, businessman or banker be called a scumbag?

Principals in DEIS schools have begged the Minister to address intergenerational trauma within the most acutely disadvantaged children and she has said she would review it in 2024. The very section of An Garda Síochána that can do the most work in building relationships on the ground, fixing issues before they start, namely, community gardaí, is the area under most strain from the Minister's failures. Housing is still a national disaster with thousands of children in sheltered accommodation. We have one of the highest overdose rates in Europe. Some 23% of Irish workers are in low-paid work.

The Minister has to deal with the issues we have raised. She cannot accuse us of playing politics. She cannot suggest we have acted inappropriately as it was not we who produced photographs of vulnerable individuals in the Dáil Chamber. The Minister cannot shout "Jonathan Dowdall", "IRA" or "Special Criminal Court" at us. She cannot accuse us of playing both sides on immigration in local communities as she knows that is not the Labour Party's way.

The Minister's post-riot announcements about the Policing Authority and Twitter have both been flatly contradicted by those involved. We have no confidence in the Government's management of justice issues in our country. The people of Ireland deserve so much better. They deserve vision, ambition and an agenda with social justice burning at its core. We are not playing politics; we did not ask for this debate. This House has been asked to place confidence in you and we cannot do that for the reasons I have outlined.

Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform (Deputy Paschal Donohoe)

I articulate my support for the Minister, Deputy McEntee, and for this motion as a Government colleague and as a TD for Dublin Central. Before I outline the reasons for my support for the Minister, I want to address what was a disgraceful and at times disturbing speech by the Leader of the Opposition.

In her speech, she alleged that it was up to two weeks before Gaelscoil Choláiste Mhuire heard from Government representatives. Not only is that wrong, the Deputy also knows it is wrong. She knows it is wrong and yet she makes the charge, continuing a form of politics which is about division, sowing distrust and undermining the good intentions of anyone in this Chamber who does not sit with her. The Deputy does so to create the perception - the illusion - of a State that is uncaring and does not engage. Nowhere in the Deputy's contribution or from any of her party's speakers thus far was there recognition that within hours of this terrible tragedy and the terrible trauma inflicted on the school I am privileged to represent as one of the Members of this House, that National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, workers, representatives of the State, were engaging with them and supporting them. The Deputy seeks to create the perception of an uncaring, unfocused State not capable of responding at a time of great need. The reality is that politicians on these benches were contacting the school, which is really only beside the point, because what they needed was care, support and engagement at a professional level from our psychologists, from the Department of Education and from the HSE, which was provided to them.

That is what they needed and it was made available.

They are the facts. What Deputy McDonald seeks to do here is create instead a vision and a rhetoric of lack of care and lack of compassion. She can question this Government and she can question any member of this House on the grounds of their competence or of what they have done. It is when she seeks to challenge people on the basis of their compassion and care that she moves into the kind of politics that is incapable of providing solidarity and incapable of providing unity exactly at a time when communities and all those who were affected by those dark moments need them.

Let me say this. I have experienced what those awful moments have done to the communities that I am privileged to represent. There is nobody I would rather have represent this State as Minister for Justice than Deputy Helen McEntee. Her compassion, empathy and steeliness in rising to this challenge are what we need. We know we have more work to do and we know that more needs to be done, but exactly at the moment that our country needed unity, Sinn Féin offered division. When our communities needed stability, it offered instability. When people wanted calmness and moderation, all it had was a loud and angry voice. We have a Minister who understands what needs to be done and who is doing it, and because of that, she has my support and that of the Government.

Minister of State at the Department of Health (Deputy Hildegarde Naughton)

I support this motion of confidence in my colleague, the Minister, Deputy Helen McEntee. It is very easy for the Opposition to say that the Minister and the Garda should have known that a major public order incident was going to break out in Dublin city centre, but how could they? How could they foretell the malign intent of some people that led them to incite a riot, especially following a tragedy where children and their care worker were so brutally attacked in the middle of the day?

Gardaí have successfully policed more than 700 protests so far this year. Some of these protests have been bad-tempered, with individual colleagues across this House directly targeted, but there have been no expressions of support from those in Sinn Féin for our front-line gardaí. Why? It is because they cannot acknowledge good policing and because they want to politicise, personalise and attack not only the Minister for Justice but the Garda Commissioner.

I also want to raise one particular aspect of Sinn Féin's reaction to recent events. As part of my brief in the Department of Health, I meet with people in drug and alcohol addiction and also provide the services to help them. I have never posted a picture or video on social media of a vulnerable person in need of help. Sinn Féin, on the other hand, last week used a picture of a clearly identifiable and vulnerable man for a cheap publicity stunt. It was posted on the Sinn Féin leader’s social media account, which has almost 200,000 followers, and waved around this House during Leaders’ Questions. A baseless connection was made between someone in addiction being a danger to children and the wider public. An innocent person was put forward as someone to be feared and avoided.

We know the truth now. The mask of Sinn Féin has slipped. It is clear that there is not one vulnerable group that Sinn Féin will not use for their own political ends. That man is someone's son, perhaps someone's brother or someone's father. God knows what he is going through. You used him. How nasty, how cheap, how typically Sinn Féin.

Minister of State at the Department of Health (Deputy Mary Butler)

The party of political opportunism strikes again. Those in Sinn Féin were not so opportunistic back in 2020 when they had the chance to go into government. They chose instead to avoid the responsibility and leave the job of leading the country through a pandemic to someone else, thankfully. Sinn Féin decided they would take the course that benefited them most. They chose to sit on the sidelines in opposition and seek to make political capital of every issue which faces our country, and here we go again. Even the horses and the greyhounds saw another policy U-turn last week.

The party of sloganeering and soundbites were out in force across the media following the riots, with no other motive than political gain. The hypocrisy has been astounding. Nobody is safe. Last week, we saw the photo of a vulnerable man, who clearly had his own personal issues, used for political gain here in the Chamber and on social media. Where is your moral compass or even your basic decency?

Sinn Féin know they will lose this vote by a very clear margin. Their only objective is to keep this in the news cycle so they can continue to snipe and chirp from the sidelines about the justice brief. Is it not a pity that they are not so forthright when it comes to speaking on their own justice policy? This is the party that does not support the Special Criminal Court, the court that convicted the party leader’s good friend, the donor and Sinn Féin stalwart, Jonathan Dowdall. It is a long-standing party policy that is a slap in the face to victims of organised crime and our security services.

Sinn Féin claims to know what is best for our gardaí. Does this include Detective Jerry McCabe, with his convicted killers shoulder-high at its Ard-Fheis in 2009?

Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Deputy Kieran O'Donnell)

Like everyone else, my thoughts are with the five-year-old girl and the crèche worker who is still recovering in hospital. That is why we are all here today. I have absolute confidence in the Minister for Justice. It is 12 days since the riots took place in Dublin. I want to contrast the behaviour of Sinn Féin and the Minister. Within a day, Deputy Louise O'Reilly was calling for a head and for the Minister to be taken out. It sent a chilling feeling that reminded me of other, past times. It was chilling, unnecessary and irresponsible of Sinn Féin. The Minister has been out in public, working with the Garda Commissioner, reassuring the public and putting extra resources in place. Sinn Féin's behaviour today and for the past 12 days has been nothing short of irresponsible.

The public want the political parties to reunite. Those in Sinn Féin were not listening to the public. We saw it in the polls recently. Effectively, the public wanted them to work with the Government. They are either for democracy and law and order or they are not. At the end of the day, they should have come out immediately. This is an affront to democracy. This was thuggish, right-wing behaviour. The ordinary person the length and breadth of Ireland was absolutely appalled by what happened. What did Sinn Féin do? They certainly were not listening to the public. I wonder who they were listening to.

We have a Minister who has effectively listened to the public, been proactive and made Ireland and, more particularly, Dublin city a safer place.

Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Deputy Martin Heydon)

I express full confidence in the Minister and her work in building stronger, safer communities across Ireland. Victims of the attack outside Gaelscoil Coláiste Mhuire, who are foremost in our thoughts, deserved a united response of solidarity from all sides of this House. Our gardaí, who faced down rioters and those looting shops, deserved a united response of solidarity from all sides of this House. Gardaí and front-line emergency workers, who undertake dangerous work every day in public service, know they have a united response from the Government and some Members of this House. However, at a time the Minister, Deputy McEntee, Commissioner Harris and the Government are building momentum on recruitment through Templemore and strengthening supports for gardaí, Sinn Féin can only think of the political playbook, which is all they know.

Last week, Deputy McDonald stood in this House and spoke for nearly ten minutes. I did not pick up one single solution, change of vision or difference that would be articulated in a Sinn Féin approach. Deputy Pearse Doherty on “Morning Ireland” the next morning did a similar length interview and when pushed at the very end, the only new solution he could come up with was to magic up new gardaí, but there was no vision and no alternative. In another full speech, Deputy McDonald expressed faux outrage, which is rich when we see how Sinn Féin used the school in Parnell Square, its building and vulnerable people as props and pawns in their political game. Sinn Féin promised change but I do not see it. I do not see anything except the dark, sinister forces that would like to change how justice prevails in this country because of their Sinn Féin background - a portfolio that they would even be allowed to hold up in Northern Ireland, never mind here.

Deputy Mark Ward

The Government has called Sinn Féin's attempt to hold the Government to account a distraction. I put it to those opposite that Fine Gael must have been distracted in the past 12 years that it has held the justice portfolio. On Fine Gael's watch, there are almost 500 fewer gardaí in Dublin since it came into government. Was it distracted when two gardaí who were on overtime from Ronanstown in my area were brutally attacked in Ballyfermot?

Was Fine Gael distracted when a rocket was fired at a garda during a protest? Was it distracted when the rank and file gardaí voted no confidence in the Garda Commissioner? Was it distracted when the US Embassy warned its country's citizens that Dublin was not safe? Was it distracted when Dublin burned two weeks ago?

As a father whose children also attended a Gaelscoil, I was appalled by the barbaric attack on three children and their carer outside Gaelscoil Choláiste Mhuire. The level of destruction and lawlessness that followed that attack in my city last week was unacceptable and inexcusable but this did not happen in isolation. The Minister has allowed things to escalate. She constantly mentions 3,000 Garda vehicles. Does she know how many Garda vehicles were available in Clondalkin and Ballyfermot one day last week? There was one Garda car for the whole area, which is a really disadvantaged area. Our communities feel abandoned by Fine Gael. The Minister walked around Dublin with a fine Garda escort and declared our city safe. I have worked as an outreach worker, meeting some of the hardest to reach members of our society in our city and in our suburbs. I have lived in Dublin my whole life and, for the first time, I do not feel as safe here. The Minister has allowed law and order to disintegrate under her watch.

The reason I have no confidence in Deputy McEntee as Minister is that, in order to fix the problem, you have to recognise that there is a problem. The Minister believes that Dublin is safe. Workers and families will disagree with her and the escalation of violence in my city will contradict her. The definition of "insanity" is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Replacing one failed Fine Gael Minister for Justice with another Fine Gael Minister for Justice will not bring about the change that is needed. I have no confidence in Deputy McEntee as Minister for Justice and I have no confidence in this Government.

Deputy Sorca Clarke

The locals around Parnell Square and the parents and teachers of the children in Gaelscoil Choláiste Mhuire will tell you that there has been a worsening element of antisocial behaviour in that area for years. However, it is has taken a brutal attack on children and their carer for the Minister to do the job for which she was appointed. In the position of Minister for Justice, where people's lives can be on the line, it is important to be proactive rather than merely reactive, something this Minister has simply failed to be. Why has it taken the stabbing of children and their carer and rioting that resembled something from a dystopian film for her to pledge a range of actions in respect of Garda effectiveness? There is no excuse for the way gardaí were left high and dry that day. Control was lost, something that should have been foreseen was not and a proper response was not put in place in time, which led to an escalation of violence, looting and destruction.

This is not just an issue in Dublin; this is replicated across the country. In Longford, in my own constituency, there is one community garda, who is on duty from Monday to Friday between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., for a town of 11,000 people. This is at a time An Garda Síochána is communicating numerous potential threats to the community in the area. The front page of the Westmeath Topic recently featured an article written with the assistance of gardaí at different ranks in that district. Their comments showed an underlying theme of shared concerns and fears as to the effects the downgrading of the Garda station in Athlone would have on the town, the residents, businesses and gardaí themselves. They cannot all be wrong. We need new leadership, a better vision and a Minister for Justice who will step up and ensure the necessary resources are put in place to guarantee public safety for all. It is not fair on residents or on gardaí and I say this as somebody to whom the gardaí in Mullingar frequently come to seek CCTV footage from my constituency office.

Deputy Catherine Murphy

Keeping people safe is one of the key functions of government. I characterise it as a critical civil liberty. Just saying the city is safe, as the Minister has done several times, does not mean it is. What was particularly shocking about the riot in Dublin was the lack of preparation for such an eventuality or, better still, a plan to prevent it from happening in the first place. On "Prime Time" on 28 November, Niall Hodgins of the GRA said there was no plan and that members turned up simply because WhatsApp messages were being passed from garda to garda. He said An Garda Síochána is a hierarchical organisation, yet no instruction came down to members.

Since the pandemic, it has been clear that there is alignment between different groups on social media. There are also international links between these groups and far-right groups, including UK white nationalist groups. These groups share recruitment methods and tactics for protests. It has been reported that the policing board raised concerns about the growing challenge posed by the far right in Ireland months ago. Earlier this year, the Garda Commissioner said the far right had failed to grow in Ireland, bucking a trend seen in other European countries. By 3 November, the Commissioner agreed to review the strategic guidance document on the policing of protests following a meeting with Fórsa, which had criticised the soft approach to policing the far right. In August, when four British tourists were set upon in Temple Bar, one of the four told The Journal that passersby told him that attacks happened regularly in the area and that "the doctor said that these incidents happen a few times a week".

In August, the same publication examined the CSO statistics on recorded crime in the Dublin central north and south districts. The article quoted Deirdre Healy, director of the institute of criminology and criminal justice in UCD’s school of law, saying that assaults tend to go under-reported to gardaí relative to other types of crime. She said: “It can create an inaccurate measure of what’s actually happening”, adding that a CSO survey in 2019 found that only 29% of victims reported such incidents. She said that this dark figure of crime statistics had been a constant in the national records for a number of decades and that it usually results in around 70% of assaults not being reported.

The report, Travelling in a Woman's Shoes, was published last year. It found that slightly less than one quarter of Dublin women and 11% of women nationally had witnessed violent behaviour or sexual harassment happening to someone else on public transport, which is a critical area. The conclusion is that this is not rare.

What has the Minister for Justice done with the memo brought to Cabinet as early as July 2016? The memo provided for the expansion of the strength of An Garda Síochána to a total headcount of 21,000, with this to be composed of 15,000 gardaí, 2,000 reservists and 4,000 civilians. There are currently fewer than 13,000 gardaí, despite the population having grown significantly since then. Those numbers are needed if we are to have any hope of a proactive style of policing. Antoinette Cunningham of the AGSI recently criticised the model of policing in Ireland, claiming it was more focused on reactive policing than on preventative policing. If crimes are not prevented from happening, time is spent is spent investigating and prosecuting them. This has to be a watershed moment.

Deputy Gary Gannon

My vote today is not intended to be personal to any one individual. My vote today is in the name of those who love the city in Dublin, who engage with it, who live in it, who work in it and who wish to send their children to school in it safely. Confidence in any form derives from a feeling of security. It has been a very long time since anybody who engages with the city of Dublin in the manners I have outlined has felt in any way secure. The vote I cast today will be in their name. That feeling of not being safe is particularly pronounced among women, as has been outlined, and among minorities. The evidence is very clear. However, what about people who just want to engage with the city as would be the norm in any other part of the country or in any other city? For example, who among us would wish to send our teenagers to the city of Dublin to go to the cinema? It never used to be the case that people were afraid to do that but that is the stage we have got to. That is not a norm we should have to accept.

Much has been made of the need to come together and to work in collaboration. I honestly cannot step away from the fact that, for the best part of two and a half years, we have sought such collaboration. We have proposed motions. One year and one week ago to the very day, Ministers came to this Chamber for statements on safety in the city of Dublin. We have sought collaboration but have not received anything back. I have not heard from the Minister in respect of collaboration and, in its absence, it is only justifiable for us to now seek accountability for the decisions being made while conditions increasingly worsen in the north inner city.

This is not about any one individual's compassion; far from it. It is often said that nobody has a monopoly on compassion. I believe that but this is about State indifference and State neglect of a community.

If one walks through the community that I grew up in in the north-inner city, one could not help feel that neglect. It reverberates off the walls. This is what my vote will be in the name of today. It was a point made to me last week. In any other part of the country, parents' councils assemble to get a new playing pitch, to hold bake sales or to raise money for the Christmas party. In the north-inner city, for too long parents' councils or groups of parents have engaged with me as a public representative and others only on the matter of safety so that their children do not have to walk to school through plumes of smoke and do not have to leave school and see vulnerable people in various states of intoxication, open drug dealing and open drug injection. That is not the norm anywhere else and I will not accept it for the norm of my community. There will be no return to normality.

I do not believe that those who have been charged with the administration of justice in my city while I have watched that decline over a decade are the ones to fix it. There is any number of issues that could be raised but when I vote today, I will be naming the people who love and engage in our city.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Ar ais go dtí an Ríaltas, there are six or seven speakers in this slot of 11 minutes. The Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, has two minutes.

Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (Deputy Roderic O'Gorman)

When the Government was formed, our programme for Government clearly stated that Ireland was facing an epidemic of domestic sexual and gender-based violence and over the past three and a half years, the Minister, Deputy McEntee, has been absolutely emphatic in her response to this prioritising the issue like no Minister before her.

She is providing leadership in tackling violence against women, a topic that was left unaddressed by successive Governments for too long. She has unveiled an ambitious new five-year zero-tolerance plan to tackle domestic, sexual and gender-based violence and ensure that all aspects of government are involved. She listened to those working on the front line against domestic violence and spearheaded a new domestic violence agency, for the first time bringing together the fragmented responsibility for this issue into one organisation.

She has overseen a substantial increase in funding for NGOs responding to DSGBV - an additional €12 million in budget 24 alone - and has outlined a clear pathway to doubling the number of refuge spaces. She has prioritised legislation to keep women safe, increasing the maximum penalty for assault causing harm, introducing a new stand-alone offence of non-fatal strangulation, championing an offence of stalking and strengthening the law around harassment, and passing Coco's law criminalising non-consentual distribution of intimate images.

It is important that we call out that pernicious suggestion that has featured in the past couple of days that somehow domestic violence is not a real justice issue and that it is somehow a soft-focus issue.

Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin

Hear, hear.

Deputy Roderic O'Gorman

That is a suggestion based fundamentally on misogyny.

Domestic violence is a crime. It is a crime deserving the commitment, dedication and effectiveness shown by the Minister, Deputy McEntee. It is a crime that this Government is determined to continue to address. I am grateful to the Minister for her leadership in tackling this issue, as I am for so much else she has advanced across her brief. She has my full confidence and I will support her this evening.

Minister of State at the Department of Transport (Deputy Jack Chambers)

Like others, my thoughts are with the children and the carer who were subjected to that horrific attack and I have full confidence in the Minister for Justice. She is a person of absolute integrity and dedication committed to reforming our justice system to make Ireland and our communities a safer place for all.

On justice issues, I have absolutely zero confidence in Sinn Féin. I have zero confidence in Sinn Féin as a party giving the Garda the support it needs to deal with the far right who want to undermine and destroy our country.

Sinn Féin has seen a political opportunity and seized on the recent horrific events for its own political gain. This is pure political exploitation at a time we have a sinister movement trying to undermine the very foundations of our State.

Sinn Féin wants to talk about justice. Here is its record on justice: Sinn Féin seeks to politicise policing at every turn, North and South. It continuously sows division in communities by undermining the Garda and the Commissioner and it undermines the State's effort to tackle organised crime and terrorism by continuously sitting on the fence on the Special Criminal Court. That is its record on justice.

Who exactly does Sinn Féin have confidence in? They have confidence in people who have collected Garda killers from prison. They have confidence in kangaroo courts and their own unique brand of rough justice. They have confidence in some members of their own parliamentary party who tried to storm Government Buildings and who tried to break the line of gardaí on our streets. We saw at the last election they have confidence in party members who continuously talk about breaking the State. It does not surprise me that Sinn Féin opposed the security of the State so routinely when many of its own members have come to the attention of the Garda.

People do not want political games. People do not want heads on plates. They want An Garda Síochána and the justice Minister united with grown-up politics and they want to fight against those who instigate disorder, division and destruction on our streets. I have full confidence in the Minister, Deputy McEntee.

Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment (Deputy Neale Richmond)

Like others, my first thoughts in speaking here this evening are, of course, with the victims of that tragic attack on Thursday a week ago but I wish to express my absolute confidence in Deputy McEntee, as Minister for Justice, in her record as Minister and her response to those tragic events of the past week or so.

Over the past couple of days, we have had the provisional propaganda machine telling us all that we need to listen. Speaking about listening, I have to ask the leader of the Opposition whether she has done any listening. Has she done any listening to the people in her own constituency, the businesses, the publicans, the workers and the restaurateurs? All they have heard from her and her party over the past ten days is absolute nonsense, talking down the city that so many of us love and talking down the businesses, and putting those businesses, for the information of Deputy Doherty, as he shakes his head, at risk. Many of them do not know if they will reopen their doors after Christmas. Many of their workers do not know if they will have a job to return to. Rather than uniting behind our capital, getting people back in, and driving that sense of safety and co-operation, we have, once again, as on average every three months, Sinn Féin tabling a no-confidence motion in a Government Minister. The party has absolutely zero ideas of how to be an Opposition party and Lord knows what it would do if it was a Government party or, God forbid, it takes over the Ministry for Justice.

I am proud of Deputy McEntee as the Minister for Justice. I am proud of her record. I am proud of my party's political tradition going back to the foundation of the State and the foundation of An Garda Síochána and I hope my political record and my party's political tradition does not haunt families and communities around this State, north, south, east, west, to this day.

Minister of State at the Department of Education (Deputy Josepha Madigan)

I, first of all, want to give my unequivocal support to the Minister, Deputy McEntee.

On a personal level, I want to thank her for her incredible work on domestic, sexual and gender-based violence. It has been phenomenal and the Taoiseach was right to say that she is the first Minister to tackle it in a serious way.

I listened to what the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, said earlier on in response to Deputy McDonald's comments on the school and the assistance it received. As a Minister of State in the Department of Education, I was absolutely gobsmacked by what Deputy McDonald said if it is the case that she knows that the school received assistance from NEPS not within two weeks, but within hours. NEPS staff were in the school by 2 p.m. that day and she is saying here, as a fact - Mary Lou Trump, fake news - that the school received no assistance for two whole weeks. I ask her to withdraw that comment because it is completely incorrect.

No. Let me clarify something. The Minister of State has asked Deputy McDonald to withdraw something.

Deputy Darragh O'Brien

The clock has stopped.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I understand Deputy McDonald is not withdrawing it.

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald

No, I am not withdrawing it.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That is okay. I am moving on. I call Deputy Feighan.

Deputy Frankie Feighan

Some years ago, my great friend, the late TD, Louis J. Belton, commented at a Fine Gael Parliamentary Party meeting that one cannot have law without order. In the past few years, maybe because of abuse of social media and the spread of fake news, Ireland has changed. There is a lot of anger and vicious abuse of people, particularly public representatives and those who with responsible authority, which is driven by cowards who insight others behind the veil of social media stories and far-fetched theories.

It is my strong belief that the Minister, Deputy McEntee, the Commissioner, Mr. Harris, his management team and the Garda have, and will have, the resources and the determination to deal with this ominous threat and to ensure that the perpetrators of this violence on the streets of our capital will not get the same opportunity to strike again with the same level of violence and damage as witnessed ten days ago.

I met Commissioner Harris many years ago and he gave me great advice. He said that sometimes people make poor choices. Sinn Féin, on this occasion and with this motion, is making a poor choice and it knows it. This is not the time to play politics with a serious issue. This is the time to unite and demonstrate our loyalty to this State and the Garda.

Since the outbreak of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, many of the perpetrators of violence and murder against our Garda have not been brought to justice. This includes those who murdered Garda recruit Gary Sheehan and Private Patrick Kelly in Ballinamore in my constituency of Sligo-Leitrim 40 years ago this week. Sinn Féin is caught in a cynical battle for votes between the so called far left and far right. However, the centre will hold and it must hold.

The Minister, Deputy McEntee, follows a long list of strong Fine Gael Ministers for Justice who took on the organisations and individuals who wanted to overthrow and destabilise this State, people like Kevin O’Higgins, Patrick Cooney, Michael Noonan and Nora Owen, to name a few. They all faced the enemies of the State head on and provided confidence and stability. I have no doubt Deputy McEntee is doing that. It is time for her to get on with the job.

Deputy Colm Burke

I support the Minister. The work she has done stands out in the sense of the work being done daily by the Garda. In the last 12 months alone, the Garda has seized more than €271 million worth of illegal drugs, 1,575 firearms and 1,780 knives and dangerous instruments. This is the result of the proactive work of gardaí on the ground, including the work being done by community gardaí. The Department, the Garda and the Minister are working extremely hard to make sure we have a safe country to live in. It is important that we highlight the people who sat on the fence while the recent incident was taking place in Dublin, namely, the people on social media who are not prepared to come out of their houses but who are prepared to use social media to provoke people. They are the real guilty people in this scenario and it is important that action is taken against them. I have full confidence in the Minister, her Department and the Garda.

Deputy Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire

I agree with the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, on gender-based violence. It is not a soft issue by any manner or means. It is an issue of crucial importance that all parties must tackle. I am aware that he was not referring to Sinn Féin in that regard but it is important to put that on the record nonetheless.

Is minic a deirtear i dtaobh rúin mímhuiníne go bhfuil níos mó fuaime agus níos mó feirge ná ciall i gceist. D'fhéadfaí sin a rá faoin rún seo cinnte ach ní ar an taobh seo atá an fhearg agus an fhuaim, ná easpa céille. We often hear it said that motions of confidence generate more heat than light. In this case, there is a great deal of heat but not much light or clear-sightedness from the benches opposite. For the past hour or so, we listened to attacks, not on Sinn Féin but on the party the Government would like Sinn Féin to be-----

Deputy Jennifer Carroll MacNeill

They are attacks on the IRA, attacks on Sinn Féin's support for the IRA and attacks on Sinn Féin's commemoration of the IRA.

Deputy Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire

-----and the opponents it would dearly wish to have. It is beside the point.

Deputy Simon Harris

Why raise it then?

Deputy Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire

Government TDs are entitled to their characters. Some of them believe them and some, less honourably, do not. That is neither here nor there and is of no concern to communities on the ground. When we boil this down, there are now fewer gardaí on the streets and fewer Garda stations open than there were when Fine Gael took office. We are two years past the 2021 targets and in terms of overall staff, the Government has not only missed the target for enlisted gardaí by 1,000. Not only that but in terms of the overall Garda workforce, between enlisted gardaí, Garda Reserve members and civilian staff, the Government is 4,000 staff behind its targets. That has real-world consequences and the Government cannot dispute that.

What happened on Thursday, 23 November was incredibly serious. The scenes we saw were among the worst seen in Dublin in many years but it was far from an isolated incident. We spent the whole summer talking about antisocial behaviour and crime in the north inner city. In the last few weeks in Cork, we had a petrol bombing and two shootings. In the petrol bombing in Onslow Gardens, a number of children were fortunate to escape without injury. Earlier in the year, we had other shootings and some serious assaults and incidents. Those real-world consequences are felt in Cork and many other places. Of the most recent cohort of 126 gardaí to leave the Garda College, one garda came to Cork. We have had four new gardaí this entire year. Some 10% of the population live in County Cork and we have had four additional gardaí.

This has been a political issue in Cork for years. I have raised it with a number of issues at this stage and we have the same routine every time. A Minister comes down and the local Minister meets the superintendent. They say things will change and improve and that an investment will be made. We get a couple of probationers over Christmas and they go back home in the new year. It is the same thing again and again and it is leading to communities feeling neglected and terrified when incidents such as the recent incidents in Cork city and Dublin occur. I had cause to ring a 24-hour Garda station on Saturday night on behalf of a constituent. I rang three times and the call rang out every time. I do not blame the gardaí in that station. I am sure they were dealing with urgent matters. The fact is nobody was there to pick up the pieces because the Garda has been neglected. We are way behind targets and gardaí leaving in their droves.

People have talked about personalised attacks but I do not believe in that and nor do most of us.

Deputy Paschal Donohoe

You are in the wrong party then.

Deputy Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire

I believe the Minister, Deputy McEntee, is a decent woman who is committed to public service. I believe she has empathy but empathy will not put any additional Garda boots on the ground where we need them, on the streets.

People have talked a lot about the spectre, as they see it, although the public and gardaí on the ground do not see it like that, of a Sinn Féin Minister for Justice. I ask Government Deputies to imagine a scenario in which a Sinn Féin Minister for Justice had overseen a recruitment and retention crisis, gardaí leaving in their droves and serious public order incidents, the big story this summer being the north inner city being unsafe, culminating in the scenes we saw last Thursday. I ask them to imagine that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil would not table a motion of confidence in that Sinn Féin Minister. They are having a laugh.

Deputy Paul Murphy

People Before Profit has no confidence in the Minister for Justice or this Government. We want the Government to go. The Government is responsible for record levels of rent and homelessness and for almost record house prices. The Government is responsible for almost 1 million people being on some form of public health waiting list. The Government is responsible for not protecting people from the cost-of-living crisis, which has seen corporate profits soar while ordinary people have struggled to put food on the table. The Government is responsible for the deep inequality and deprivation, which still exists across our society while private landlords, big fossil fuel companies and private health companies make super profits.

What has that got to do with any of this? It is those conditions which are exploited by the far right, turning people's legitimate anger, not against those who are responsible - the Government and the class it represents - but against some of the most marginalised and vulnerable people in our society, including asylum seekers, LGBTQ people and women. How has the Government responded-----

Deputy Bernard J. Durkan

Change the Minister.

Deputy Paul Murphy

-----to this abuse and incitement we have seen from the far right? It has responded by conceding ground. Look at what Deputy Coveney told the Financial Times just last week. He said we have to listen to people, effectively the rioters, and then, linked to that, was the idea that asylum seekers would, shamefully, be put on the street with nothing but €75 per week.

(Interruptions).

Deputy Paul Murphy

There was a trial about that. This is absolutely shameful.

Deputy Darragh O'Brien

Tell us what happened. Legitimate protest, was it?

(Interruptions).

Deputy Paul Murphy

What is happening now is that the far right is organising.

Deputy Peadar Tóibín

Misogyny, as well.

Deputy Paul Murphy

We have been calling out this organising for well over a year. We have been pointing out the truth, that the Government's police force, presumably with the Government's agreement, has taken a softly-softly approach all through the lie.

Deputy Simon Coveney

Deputy, it is the country's police force.

Deputy Paul Murphy

The Garda allowed people to board buses. It allowed far-right agitators to go in and harass librarians and pharmacists.

(Interruptions).

Deputy Paul Murphy

Gardaí were there just before refugees were burned out at Sandwith Street.

Deputy Paschal Donohoe

No.

Deputy Paul Murphy

Where was the left in that? The left was standing with the refugees in Sandwith Street, trying to protect them from the attacks of the far right. The left was organising for the Ireland For All demonstration. The Government's system of deep inequality and discrimination creates a breeding ground for this and then it will not take a stand against them. We have no confidence in the Government. We have to look to the movement of ordinary people and the trade union movement. They are the only force-----

Deputy Bernard J. Durkan

Street violence.

Deputy Paul Murphy

-----that will be able to resist this rising menace of hatred, division and the far right.

Deputy Simon Coveney

Your only solution is protesting.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I call Deputy Mick Barry, with no interruptions please.

Deputy Mick Barry

A riot was organised by Ireland's far right 12 days ago. It was organised by racist organisations and fascist organisers. Shop workers were terrorised and bus workers, gardaí and firefighters were attacked. What did the Tánaiste do tonight? Instead of making criticism, when he looks around the Dáil, of those Deputies who promote the talking points of Ireland's far right and who have been happy to pose for photographs with some of their organisers, he attacks the proposers of this motion and the socialist left. The Tánaiste accused Deputy McDonald of not giving warning in advance, but there was no shortage of warnings from various sources. On 25 September, The Irish Times ran an article headlined, "Why weren’t warnings about the far-right threat taken seriously?" In it, columnist Una Mullaly wrote, "The political entity that has countered this threat on our streets, in communities, and in parliament most consistently, is Solidarity-People Before Profit." Who does the Tánaiste attack? Precisely the best anti-fascists in that regard. The Tánaiste is well aware of this but he prefers making cynical jibes on the floor of the Dáil to making a serious contribution to this debate.

I want to comment on the Minister's response to the riot. It is a law and order response and it will not work. You cannot pepper spray alienation, baton charge anger and social inequality, Taser the housing crisis or use water cannon to wash away a culture of toxic masculinity. The Government has failed to tackle the social crisis, which gives an audience to the far right and has brought many young people out onto the streets. I have no confidence in this Minister, this Government, or the unjust social system of capitalism they defend.

Deputy Charlie McConalogue

What about confidence in the Garda?

Deputy Mick Barry

I will vote "No" on the confidence motion tonight.

Minister for Education (Deputy Norma Foley)

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Leas-Cheann Comhairle as an am agus an deis seo a thabhairt dom. I join previous speakers in extending my support and solidarity to the children and their carer who were impacted by the horrific event in Parnell Square on a recent Thursday afternoon, and also their wider community, especially their school community. I acknowledge, as has been referenced by previous speakers, that among the first responders to that incident were NEPS psychologists, the school psychologists from the Department of Education. They were there on the Thursday and again on the Friday to work with senior management when the school was closed, then again over the weekend, on Sunday, to work with senior management, and again on Monday when the school reopened. They are there every single day to support these children and the school community as it finds a way forward after this horrific and tragic incident.

We tell our young people in our schools that all will be well when we work together in solidarity, mind each other, support each other and work as a cohesive unit. How shameful for them to see the politicking that is going on inside and outside this Chamber by those who should know better, those who seek to sow division and divisiveness and those who should show leadership, solidarity and community cohesion at a time when we need it in this country.

I have 100% confidence in the Minister, Deputy McEntee, in recognition of the strong and positive work she does every single day in the name of communities right across this country. As the Minister for Justice, she has wide responsibilities and functions, chief among which is the tackling of crime and ensuring that those who perpetrate crime are brought to justice. The Minister is wholeheartedly to doing this in respect of those who wreaked havoc in our national capital. I have every confidence she will succeed.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I thank the Minister.

Deputy Norma Foley

I expect better from leaders in politics. Our children are showing leadership. Our school communities are showing leadership. Shame on those who do not show leadership on an issue of this nature. For shame.

Deputies

Hear, hear.

Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications (Deputy Ossian Smyth)

I was in the north inner city with the Minister, Deputy Foley, when this attack happened. My reaction and everybody's reaction were surely the same, one of absolute horror at the idea of children being stabbed on the street. Shortly afterwards, there was a horrible sense of imminence that there were people on the far right who would see this as an opportunity for advantage. They were people who were licking their lips at the thought that these acts may have been carried out by somebody who was born outside Ireland, hoping that they could react in this way to gain political advantage.

I did not expect or predict what Sinn Féin's reaction to this attack would be. I did not expect to see, in the Dáil Chamber, a photograph of a vulnerable person being held up, which clearly had the effect of encouraging suspicion towards homeless people and a sense that, when one sees a homeless person on the street, the person may pose a threat to children. That was the wrong thing to do. I am not saying that Sinn Féin members are bad people, and I do not believe that, but what Sinn Féin did that day was wrong. I also think that what Sinn Féin is doing today is wrong. Attacking the Minister, Deputy Helen McEntee, is playing into an existing far-right trope, the idea that a woman is too weak to be the justice minister. This is something I see put out on social media all the time, and it pushes that idea.

Deputy Réada Cronin

Nobody is saying that.

Deputy Ossian Smyth

We need better regulation of social media using the new laws that we now have in place. We need to reassure people born outside Ireland that they are welcome here and they will not be subject to violent attacks. We need to prosecute the very small number of far-right people who organise these attacks. What we do not need is this shabby pantomime that Sinn Féin is putting on today.

Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform (Deputy Patrick O'Donovan)

"If she won't resign, he needs to take her out." Those are the words of a Member of the Front Bench of a party that claims it wants to be in government after the next election. It is well the Deputy hangs her head in shame this evening with words like that. If a male Member of this House said that about a woman in this House, he would be gone. More shame on Deputy McDonald for tolerating that sort of behaviour on her Front Bench, the threatening language used against a woman Minister for Justice who has given her life in service, which is far more than I hear from the Deputies opposite, with apology, apology and apology, and for what? It is for the 22 children in this State who grew up fatherless because of the dead gardaí who were put into early graves by Sinn Féin's sister organisation. It is well that you may shake your head. We are here this evening to talk about An Garda Síochána. In my constituency, a man was riddled on the side of the street. What happened to his killers?

They were driven out of Castlerea Prison like heroes by a former member of Sinn Féin's Front Bench. For Sinn Féin to come in here and lecture anyone in this House about its new-found interest in An Garda Síochána is nauseating, to put it very mildly.

We know of Sinn Féin's recent attachment to certain members of the council who have frequency in the Special Criminal Court. We all know about that. We also know about its disdain for the Special Criminal Court. Why would it not have disdain for it; it has locked up more people connected to that party than to any other organisation in this State.

Tonight's motion has spectacularly backfired on Sinn Féin. If you talk to anybody around the country, they are disgusted that Sinn Féin would link the atrocious attack on a young girl to the resignation of the Minister for Justice and the Garda Commissioner. They need to take a long look at themselves.

Deputy Ciarán Cannon

This motion is a cynical, clumsy attempt to gain political capital from a tragic incident. Thankfully, the Irish people are beginning to see Sinn Féin for what it really is, namely, a party linked to criminality that has repeatedly sought to undermine our State and institutions and one that applauded those who took the life of one of our gardaí. It is no secret that officials in the Department of Justice are filled with dread at the prospect of a Sinn Féin Minister for Justice but perhaps members of the Sinn Féin Front Bench could bring their personal experience to bear in that Department. Deputies Carthy and Doherty could advise gardaí on how to deal with abusive behaviour, with both having being convicted of offences arising from such abusive behaviour towards our gardaí on O'Connell Street. Deputy Aonghus Ó Snodaigh could advise on how to protect Government Buildings from a breach of security as he has personal experience of partaking in such a breach, forcing a lone member of An Garda Síochána to defend himself and seek reinforcements.

Any examination of Sinn Féin's past, always reveals some murky and sordid details, none more so than the details of the appalling treatment of rape victim Máiría Cahill. In her book Rough Beast: My Story and the Reality of Sinn Féin, Ms Cahill describes how the IRA used Sinn Féin's offices to question her about sexual abuse. Reading her book, we hear her words ringing out loud and clear. She wrote: "It is very strange to be sitting in the office of the most powerful men in Ireland and to be asked to give your opinion on whether a man should live or die." Despite repeated questioning, the leader of Sinn Féin has always refused to comment on the use of her party's offices to question a deeply vulnerable victim of rape. That is the hallmark of Sinn Féin, a party living a dual existence that has no credibility whatsoever-----

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Thank you, Deputy. We are over time.

Deputy Ciarán Cannon

-----in seeking to remove a Minister with genuine justice at the heart of her work every day.

Deputy Fergus O'Dowd

This week, 51 years ago, Jean McConville, a widow with ten children, was abducted, murdered and secretly buried in my county. Nobody has been convicted of that crime, although some have been arrested and later released. I live in County Louth which has suffered greatly, even recently. We all know about the appalling criminality and the drug intimidation that took place in Drogheda, in particular, the dismembering of a child. The answer was a Government response, through the Minister, Deputy McEntee, in which €16 million in additional supports and over 30 additional gardaí were given to An Garda Síochána. There has been huge investment in crèches and community facilities. That is the response that Ministers need to make. They need to tackle the underlying causes of crime, drug abuse and drug addiction and the appalling drug problems and problems arising from drugs that young people face.

Deputy Matt Carthy

Coupled with that, the Government has fundamentally changed how our communities are policed. When I was growing up, everyone knew the local gardaí and the local gardaí knew everyone.

(Interruptions).

Deputy Patrick O'Donovan

You did anyway.

Deputy Simon Harris

You knew him very well.

Deputy Matt Carthy

People felt safer.

Deputy Martin Heydon

You knew where he lived.

Deputy Matt Carthy

That is no longer the case. The population has increased and our towns have grown. In response, Fine Gael has closed Garda stations and reduced Garda numbers. Its members do not like to hear it but those are the facts. It cannot continue.

We called on the Minister to resign; she did not do so. We cannot continue with a Minister for Justice who has allowed our communities to feel increasingly unsafe while she insists our cities are safe and the daily experience of everyone who lives in, works in, visits or runs a business in them says that it is not the case. We called on the Taoiseach to dismiss the Minister-----

Deputy Jennifer Carroll MacNeill

You harass and cause problems for gardaí. That is not what we do.

(Interruptions).

Deputy Matt Carthy

We will hold you accountable, just as the people will get their chance to hold everybody who votes in this no-confidence motion accountable when the opportunity arises. I will vote no confidence tonight.

An Ceann Comhairle

I remind Members that the public are looking in-----

Deputy Réada Cronin

Can we remind Fine Gael Members?

An Ceann Comhairle

-----and that they will make their own judgments on what is being said on all sides of the House. Can we do our business in a slightly more orderly manner, please?

Deputy Peter Fitzpatrick

I condemn the barbaric attack on three children and their carer, crèche manager Leanne Flynn, outside Gaelscoil Choláiste Mhuire on Thursday, 23 November, and send my prayers to the two people still in hospital.

There seems to be an idea that the Minister for Justice should have a hands-on role in day-to-day policing. The Minister's job is to be very clear on policy, put laws in place and ensure police have the numbers and resources necessary. In September, I and my colleagues in the Regional Group published a motion expressing severe concerns about the ongoing challenges faced by An Garda Síochána. It would therefore be remiss of me to bypass the fact that there is a chronic shortage of resources, which directly impacts the force's ability to carry out its role. However, who the Minister for Justice is does not really deal with the issues we face.

Claims that the riots and public disorder in the aftermath of this attack could have been foreseen, prevented or contained through earlier action are careless and plain wrong. The fact is that the hooligan culture and the criminality issues we face run much deeper than law and order. Initial protests in the city centre on Thursday were organised by anti-immigration figures who were later joined by opportunistic rioters. We all heard the WhatsApp message. "They can't control us all. Let's have little groups splintering off, doing what we got to do," it said. Phrases such as "tool up" and "kill any foreigner" were also used.

Yes, more resources are needed - we can all agree on that. The Minister, Deputy McEntee, is absolutely aware of that. She is focusing on her work in the Department of Justice and supporting An Garda Síochána as it keeps us safe and maintains law and order. She is doing her best. We need to stop playing political football. We need to put our heads together and action interventions that target the issues of poverty, criminality and the "them versus us" narrative growing throughout our country's culture, rather than seeing the current situation as an opportunity to take out an individual Minister.

I will support the Minister this evening on the motion of confidence.

Deputy Peadar Tóibín

Every year Deputy McEntee has been Minister, the number of gardaí has fallen. Garda morale has collapsed and Garda recruitment is on the floor. Every single day, a garda is violently attacked. Gardaí are getting rammed, bitten and assaulted and are having chemicals sprayed in their eyes. Garda retirements and resignations are on the increase. In October just past, for the first time, resignations exceeded retirements for the reason of exit from the force. Prisons are now so overcrowded that the Minister is letting criminals out on temporary release to make space for other criminals.

All of this has consequences. Crime and lawlessness are making no-go zones out of city centres and villages around the country. Murder is on the increase. Sexual assault has doubled in ten years. Rape has doubled in ten years. Domestic violence has tripled in the past ten years. Serious unprovoked attacks are now commonplace. There is also a direct correlation between the fall in the number of gardaí and the level of increase of fatalities on the roads in this country. We have the lowest number of gardaí policing the roads since 2009. Behaviour is changing on the roads, and that has led to the increase in fatalities in recent years.

All of this is before we get to the issue of the riots in our capital, the worst riots in generations. I spoke to gardaí on the day and they told me that many of them were mobilised not by Garda order but by fellow gardaí screaming on WhatsApp groups for help. They told me that they did not get mobilised until 6 o'clock and 7 o'clock, that they went to Santry, which was in pandemonium, that they did not have enough helmets, shields or body armour to deal with the situation and that, through traffic, it took at least one hour to get to the city centre. Garda lives were placed in danger on that day. We were lucky we did not lose the life of a garda in that situation. Images of our capital in flames were beamed across the world. The Minister lost control of our capital city. The Minister will win this no-confidence vote not on her record but because this Government is an accountability-free zone. If there is no accountability, there will be no change.

Deputy Matt Shanahan

I vote on a case-by-case basis, which is evidenced by the many times my vote has found fault with Government actions versus objectives.

To the matter at hand, I have little confidence that Dublin is entirely safe. I have little confidence that the important reforms and modernisation of policing in this country are progressing at the pace required. I have little confidence that gardaí are appropriately and fully supported or equipped and remunerated for their work, which is a very different job from the job of decades ago. I have little confidence that there is anything like the follow-through that our aspirational warm welcome to inward migration demands in terms of practical administration, resourcing, support, accommodation, schooling, language, and labour market and cultural integration. It is, unfortunately, largely a mess that needs assertive action now.

In a Regional Group motion we tabled in September, we discussed the subject of policing, and I found the Government position to be very much of its own view. I think the benefits of high office are showing. I believe that the message must get through to the Government that all voices must be heard. As regards confidence, however, I am anxious that this Government be forced to stay in office, largely in order that it can be seen to deliver what it promised to me and my constituents: to deliver the 24-7 cardiac care and health equality to UHW; having forced the blasted technological university on us, to deliver the new courses, capacity and buildings in the region that remain elusive to this point; and to deliver the Waterford Airport runway extension, the north quays project and a fair share from the €13 billion capital expenditure budget this year. On these points, however, let me be clear: Opposition parties have made no promises to the south east and, therefore, I have no incentive to give them a whirl with Mercs and perks and the ritzy new Government jet. I remain intent on holding the Government to its promises. For that reason I will vote confidence.

Deputy Seán Canney

My sincere opinion is that having a vote of confidence in any Minister at this stage is wrong for the simple reason that what we are doing is giving a status to the people who wreaked havoc on our streets and our city. It is unthinkable that they would get one up on democracy by having a Minister lose her job over this. We have to focus on gardaí and how we can help them. I think about the young gardaí coming out of Templemore this week and next week to join the force over the Christmas period. Many of them will have come to Dublin and are brave enough to come up to Dublin and to participate in the Garda force. We should remember that, and I am proud of every one of them. We should also remember the gardaí who were out on duty that night. They are fathers, they are mothers, they could be brothers or sisters, or they could have had parents looking on at what was going on.

Today, with the back-and-over we have had here, we have shown a disregard for our gardaí. We have not spoken about them or given them the plaudits they need and deserve. Today is a day to do that. Both sides of the House need to wise up a small bit and make sure that, whatever we do, we get a whole-of-government approach to solving the issues that are there. It is not one Minister or one Department. Right across the Government, we need to see everybody put their shoulder to the wheel and we need the Opposition coming in behind them to make sure we save democracy and do not let it out of our hands and into the hands of the people who were on the streets last week.

Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (Deputy Simon Harris)

I have full confidence in my friend and colleague, the Minister, Deputy McEntee. I am proud of her and proud of her work.

The Irish people wanted political leaders to stand united behind the gardaí, behind our Minister for Justice and against the thugs who set this city alight. The Minister wanted to park politics. She picked up the phone and offered that to the leader of the Opposition, but she was refused. The Minister, Deputy McEntee, and the Government support the Garda. We stand with them and with Garda families.

Contrast that with Deputy McDonald, a Deputy who threw a party for a man who collected a Garda killer from the prison gates, a Deputy who would appoint to Cabinet people who have been arrested and charged for abusing gardaí and people who have evaded the arrest of the Garda. Such people are sitting on the Sinn Féin benches. Deputy McDonald wanted people to #MakeTheChange and vote for a "popular and respected member of his community". That person turned out to be the waterboarding torturer, Jonathan Dowdall. What pathetic judgment.

Sinn Féin has had a good run, but people are starting to see that nothing is more important to Sinn Féin than Sinn Féin.

Wherever the wind blows, Sinn Féin goes. It is in favour of increased health budgets but promises less than the Government delivers. It is in favour of home ownership while opposing every support we put in place to help people buy their own homes. It is in favour of building more houses while opposing 800 houses in this city alone this year. It is in favour of tackling climate action while opposing every action we need to take. It is pro-European but it voted against every referendum on Europe, including the one to join. Apparently it is pro-free media despite 18 legal actions being taken by its party and God knows how many other legal letters sent.

The Irish people can see through it because on the big issues and on the big days one thing is consistent, it is always on the wrong side. People want unity, Sinn Féin wants division. Sinn Féin is now following the populist book, a playbook that elected a reality TV star as President of the United States and sent Nigel Farage to Europe. Maybe Mary Lou could join them on the next reality TV show, "I'm a populist, get me out of here". Sinn Féin attacks the media and demonises and dehumanises its opponents. It calls for heads. It offers no solutions. It exploits every crisis and this is the worst example of it. Sinn Féin's priority is, and only ever will be, Sinn Féin.

Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (Deputy Simon Coveney)

I categorically state my full support for my friend and colleague the Minister, Deputy Helen McEntee, and for the Garda Commissioner. There are moments in politics when raw hypocrisy needs to be called out. The idea that Sinn Féin now presents itself as the defender of law and order and the Garda Síochána is difficult for this party to stomach. Sinn Féin is the only party in the House that has publicly supported murderers of members of An Garda Síochána. This is a party with a TD convicted by the Special Criminal Court and sentenced to ten years in prison. This is a party that walks out of the House, literally, when asked to confirm support for the Special Criminal Court. This is a party with a front bench Member who tried to storm the House from Merrion Street with a group of protesters in 2010, forcing gardaí to draw batons to protect themselves and these Houses. This is a party whose leader, even this evening, decided, deliberately in my view, to mislead the Chamber and to sow further division and fear, even among such a vulnerable community as parents and staff in a vulnerable school, in the context of this debate.

Let me say this, I believe our Minister for Justice has more integrity than Sinn Féin has in its entire organisation. I believe the Garda Commissioner, whose father let us not forget was murdered by the IRA in his car on his way to church with his wife, has more integrity and has done more for the people of this Ireland, North and South, in terms of law and order than any of you on the benches opposite. We all in this House have work to do to respond to the threat of the far right and the division and hate it seeks to create. I trust the Minister Deputy McEntee and Commissioner Harris to give the leadership needed to face down this challenge. I believe the country does too.

Minister of State at the Department of Justice (Deputy James Browne)

I stand to express my confidence in the Minister, Deputy McEntee, and it is an honour to serve with her in the Department of Justice. Our primary thoughts this evening are with those children and the crèche worker injured on that day. I thank the members of the public, the emergency workers and the healthcare workers who all rushed to the scene on that occasion.

Out of this tragedy the far right saw an opportunity and took it to create division, to sow misinformation and to whip up fear. What followed in Dublin city later that evening was an absolute disgrace. They brought shame on themselves. Thugs saw an opportunity and took it to cause violence, destruction and fear. Our emergency workers responded with bravery and responded swiftly to the scene to defend the communities.

Sinn Féin saw an opportunity and took it. Its response to an unimaginable tragedy and violence, and fear in our communities, was to rush out and instrumentalise that tragedy. When there was a threat to democracy and the ship needed to be steadied, Sinn Féin's first instinct was to try to tip it over. When it realised it had completely misjudged the public's response, it found somebody who could not defend themselves and paraded their photograph around the place. It punched down. Of course, punching down when in trouble is a red flag for populists throughout the world.

This evening Sinn Féin has stood up to state its support for An Garda Síochána. Let us remember the record, and one instance in particular, of Sinn Féin and its sister organisation the IRA in my county of Wexford. Garda Seamus Quaid was murdered by the IRA. His family had to remove his memorial in protest at Sinn Féin holding its Ard-Fheis in County Wexford. Sinn Féin spent decades undermining law and order in this State with deadly consequences.

Around the time of the tragedy in the north inner city I was on Green Street where I was speaking at a SAOL Project event. The SAOL Project is a community project that deals with women who suffer from domestic, sexual and gender-based violence and those with addiction issues. I will repeat what I said at that event. A number of people are criticising the Minister, Deputy McEntee, with derogatory comments about woke issues. Domestic, sexual and gender-based violence is a law and order issue.

Deputies

Hear, hear

Deputy James Browne

Domestic, sexual and gender-based violence is a serious crime. The Minister, Deputy McEntee, deserves credit for her work in this area and not to be discredited.

Deputies

Why are you saying that to us?

Deputy Charles Flanagan

I rise to strongly support the Minister, Deputy McEntee, and the Commissioner, Drew Harris, in their work, in particular at this time of challenge to the State from the far right and the far left. The first duty of any State is the safety and security of its citizens. In this regard Fine Gael has never been found wanting. It faced down decades of threats of a most brutal type from Sinn Féin and the IRA and the broader republican movement.

When Sinn Féin speaks about law and order and the rule of law it brings to mind the loyal and dedicated members of An Garda Síochána who were murdered by the republican movement and their bereaved families. I recall Garda Richard Fallon, Inspector Samuel Donegan, Garda Michael Reynolds, Garda Michael Clerkin near my home, Garda John Morley, Garda Henry Byrne, Garda Seamus Quaid, Garda Patrick Reynolds, recruit Garda Gary Sheehan, Garda Frank Hand, Sergeant Patrick Morrissey, Detective Garda Jerry McCabe, Garda Tony Golden and Garda Adrian Donohoe. How many of these brutal murders of members of An Garda Síochána in the course of their duty have been condemned by Sinn Féin? How many were not? The record speaks for itself. We remember Senator Billy Fox from our own political family. We will take no lectures from Sinn Féin on the rule of law and law and order.

Deputies

Hear, hear.

Deputy Charles Flanagan

In the 1970s Fine Gael took vital steps to protect the integrity and security of the State, putting the interests the country before electoral politics. Twenty years later Fine Gael, with the assistance of the Criminal Assets Bureau, took on and repelled organised gangs in Dublin. We are doing the same now with Commissioner Harris and the Minister, Deputy McEntee. Rather than make a positive and constructive contribution in the provision of solutions, we see Sinn Féin again reverting to type, putting down the institutions of the State. We have seen it in the North and we now see it in the South. I reject this and I support the Minister Deputy McEntee.

Deputies

Hear, hear.

An Ceann Comhairle

We have just over one minute and a half left in the slot for Deputies Durkan and Troy.

Deputy Bernard J. Durkan

In the aftermath of the situation that unveiled itself in the inner city in recent times, it falls upon us all in this House to put our support behind the Minister and behind the Commissioner of An Garda Síochána to ensure law and order remain central facets of our lives. If they do not, then turmoil follows. When Kristallnacht was in hand in the 1930s in central Europe the hard right and the hard left were on the streets protesting in common cause. Protesting against what? What it amounts to in this particular situation is this: the public want a response from the people in this House to what happened in the inner city when Garda cars were burned and other vehicles were burned, including public transport vehicles. Dublin was held up across the globe as being an unsavoury place to live. Great damage was done. The response that comes from this House now must be to support the Garda Commissioner and the Minister for Justice. I do not think all of Sinn Féin are bad. Some people on its benches would not want to go this way. I appeal to them to think carefully about it. The Opposition of today could be the Government of tomorrow. We never know when or where. Everybody in the House will be called upon again at some stage to stand up and be counted on which side we are on.

There can be no sides when it comes to the kind of violence we saw on the streets of our city, which was portrayed all over the world.

An Ceann Comhairle

We are out of time and none remains for Deputy Troy; apologies. I call Deputy Mattie McGrath.

Deputy Mattie McGrath

First, our thoughts and prayers are with the young children and their carer and the whole school community of Gaelscoil Choláiste Mhuire. This was a terrible incident, but what happened in Dublin did not happen overnight. The Garda has been demoralised. We saw this when 99% of its members voted no confidence in the Commissioner. This did not all happen under the watch of the Minister, Deputy McEntee, either. It happened on the watch of Deputy Flanagan, when he was the Minister, and on the watch of the former Minister, Alan Shatter, before him, and before that. It is interesting that the Government Deputies are all standing up and talking about their friend and colleague, the Minister. Frances Fitzgerald was a friend of theirs as well, as was Alan Shatter. What happened to them? I would look in the mirror if I were them.

Deputy Charles Flanagan

You were not saying that when you were over in the Department-----

Deputy Mattie McGrath

The Government has neglected to resource and support the Garda. The force is under-resourced and morale was never as low. This is a pity because we do need to support the gardaí. We need them. There is a very thin line between anarchy and good living and what we need. I salute the gardaí who travelled long distances from all over the country last week, of their own volition, men and women, to help their colleagues and regain the streets of our capital city. I salute and support them. We must support them.

I was all for having a Commissioner from outside the State, but, unfortunately, this Commissioner has not worked out. I refer to the carry-on that has gone on with the Government not supporting the Garda. Every piece of legislation brought in recent years has been anti-gardaí. The members of the force have not been supported, not given the tools of the trade and not allowed to do what they are supposed to be doing. Is mór an trua é sin. Unfortunately, therefore, I cannot support the Minister tonight because I have expressed no confidence in her and in the Commissioner before.

Deputy Michael Collins

Garda morale is at an all-time low. There is no Garda leadership in this country. Garda stations have been closed. Crime is on the rise in our cities and in the countryside and people are feeling in danger. This was the case well before the outbreak of this recent mindless crime in Dublin, when our capital city was in grave danger. I saw this situation for myself. There were shocking scenes by night and the Minister was in complete denial. Ministers are pointing at far-right people who caused these crimes. This is Ministers and politicians in denial and trying to point the finger of blame at someone else instead of the lunatics it should be pointed at. One Monday, a few months ago, the Minister asked people to come to our capital and said it was a safe place to come to. Just a few days later, she was allocating millions of euro to the Garda force in Dublin to tackle the crisis and safeguard the people who live in or visit our capital city.

I would have much preferred if this motion concerned the Garda Commissioner, as the buck has to lie on his lap in respect of what goes on in relation to crime in this country. He has failed miserably. He does not have the confidence of the members of his own Garda force. It is easy to see why, after watching the scenes nearly two weeks ago, where members of An Garda Síochána were disgracefully kicked around Dublin. This Garda force needs strong leadership, and confidence at this time is at an all-time low in its leadership. I also have serious concerns about the numbers of extra gardaí being moved to Dublin. These gardaí must be coming from rural communities, thereby leaving these communities wide open to crime.

Deputy Michael Healy-Rae

I cannot support the Minister tonight but I think Sinn Féin is wrong in what it is doing now. The timing is not right. The reason I cannot support the Minister, though, is not because of the riots or anything like that, but because we have hardworking gardaí who wanted the Minister to support them. Instead, she supported the Commissioner who did not have the confidence of 97% or 98% of the hardworking gardaí in this country.

On behalf of the gardaí in County Kerry, I cannot express confidence in the Minister tonight, no more than I could do so in the Commissioner. I refer to the good work of the GRA, and its hard-working representatives up and down the length and breadth of this country, but the Commissioner has not been listening to or has not been working for our gardaí. He was pulling against them instead of pulling with them. He was divisive and upsetting to them. At a time when we needed the Government to support the gardaí, it did not do so.

I do not agree with the timing of this motion but at the same time, and to answer honestly the question of whether I have confidence in the Minister, I am very sorry but I do not or I cannot, and this is the way I will be voting. Every one of the people who have been contacting me knows this is my feeling on the matter. I just want to express my sincere prayers for and sympathies to the people who were injured. I hope they will make a recovery. I thank the gardaí, the ambulance people, the other emergency personnel and the bystanders who assisted on that evening.

Deputy Carol Nolan

I also begin by wishing all those injured in the brutal stabbing a speeding recovery. My thoughts and prayers are with them all at this time. I wish to make one thing clear to the Minister. My lack of confidence in her is based on my assessment of the failures she has overseen at the policy level and is certainly not personal, because I do not agree with personal attacks. I accept that the Minister has done some good work in the area of combating domestic violence and violence against women, and this should be acknowledged. At the same time, however, the Department of Justice, under the Minister's watch, has overseen a complete breakdown in morale among rank-and-file gardaí. The Department has utterly failed to ensure that our immigration and entry procedures in this State are robust. The Minister has become a distraction from the kind of focus the Department of Justice requires now. As long as we are talking about the Minister and, indeed, the Garda Commissioner, in whom I do not have confidence either, we are not talking about the issues that really matter to people. We need to address these issues. No one has the right to hold the office the Minister holds. It is a trust and privilege.

Deputy Danny Healy-Rae

These thugs and blackguards do not deserve the name of any political category, such as calling them "far right" or "right". They are thugs, blackguards, thieves and robbers. I cannot support the Minister because she has not supported the gardaí right around the country, whether it is in Kerry or in Dublin, or wherever. Instead, she is supporting a Commissioner who does not have the support of the Garda members.

Deputy Michael Fitzmaurice

I am thankful to have the opportunity to speak on this motion. On a personal basis, I get on well with the Minister. I think, though, that the Garda Commissioner has lost the dressing room completely. Our thoughts must be with the people who were stabbed and hurt before the riots. We wish them well.

I hear all this talk about the far right in this country. Yes, there are extreme people in this country. To put it simply, though, basically, it was yobbos and thugs who went setting the Garda cars, the Luas trams and the buses on fire. These are people who probably never worked a day in their lives. What worries me is that I remember when the Troubles were in the North and there were about 3,500 gardaí here then. We had about 4,000 fewer gardaí then. Now, we have 5,300 civilians as well. Neither in the countryside nor in the city do we have enough cover, whatever has gone wrong. Someone needs to explain this situation.

Regarding young gardaí, I hear one thing said day in and day out. I think every one of us here hears it. It is that they are leaving the force. We have all seen this. I have seen this happening the same as anyone else. The funny thing about this development, though, and the real kick in the teeth, is that some of these young people would be driving 120 miles or 130 miles daily because they cannot afford rental accommodation that costs from €1,500 to €2,000 per month in Dublin. The people who were out rioting the other night will probably get a house after seven or eight years and will get the dole every week, while the people who are trying to mind the State cannot afford accommodation in our capital city. We must look at what is going on in this country. We have got too politically correct and we are afraid to say a lot of stuff.

There is a major problem in rural Ireland as well. Garda stations were closed, and every night now we see on social media where community alert groups are constantly putting out messages about where there have been break-ins. I believe the Commissioner has lost the dressing room. The day the Minister walked up that street, some two or three months ago now, with a few gardaí by her side, and said Dublin was safe, was the day I closed the book on it and lost faith.

Deputy Michael McNamara

There is much about personalities and criticism of people's personalities on both sides of this House. For me, this is not about personalities at all, for what it is worth. The Minister is a fine person and a relatively competent politician. There must, though, be political accountability in this House in this democracy. This must be the case for health services and security services. Unfortunately, there are fewer gardaí in the State now. The total is a little under 14,000 now, while there was a little under 18,000 at the start of this Dáil term.

Of those gardaí, they are spending more time behind computers. That is annoying them and they are losing confidence in their Garda management.

We might ask what that has to do with the Minister. It is the role of the Government to put management in place in the health service or An Garda Síochána that is able and resourced to do the job. It is very clear from the views, responses and votes of rank and file gardaí, with regard to the GRA, that they do not have confidence. The problem is resources or Garda management. Either way, that becomes the Minister's problem because she is the one who is accountable to the House for that.

I regret not being able to express confidence in the Minister. I hope she will recruit a lot more gardaí and develop systems whereby they have more time on the beat and are not tied up as much behind their desks. All I can go on is what I am seeing and hearing in my constituency. The lack of gardaí on the beat is resulting in increasing antisocial behaviour not just on the streets of Dublin but on the streets of Ennis. That is a problem because people now expect gardaí to be transferred from rural towns to Dublin. There is not the capacity for that. There is a real problem with policing in this State and there has to be political accountability. It is not that I take any pleasure in not voting confidence in the Minister, but there has to be political accountability and on that basis I regret that I cannot express confidence in the Government on this issue.

Deputy Marc MacSharry

First, I want to express my best wishes to the victims who are continuing to recover following the attacks of two weeks ago and condemn the wanton violence and thuggery of those recent events. There is no excuse for them and they have no place in our society.

I will support the Minister because, as I have said to a lot of media during the week, what I would much prefer us to focus on as a House is making the urgent adjustments the working people of Ireland in the centre want to see to our policies on justice and immigration. The Garda authorities and Government must be less dismissive of the fact that there is a morale and a retention issue. The Commissioner must seek to build the confidence that he has clearly lost. In that regard, I respectfully suggest that he cease his policy, that seems to be continuing, of the transposition of senior PSNI staff south of the Border, which, in my view, does not build confidence and morale among his own people.

I am in favour of immigration. I worked abroad. We must do everything we can in line with our capacity. Sadly, despite being advised by me and many others in the House, we persisted in developing a unique bespoke and outlier approach, in particular since the war in Ukraine, that middle Ireland is sick of. People fleeing the war in Ukraine will get €220 a week. If I am fleeing the war in Syria, I will get €38 a week. The Department of integration, in direct competition with Minister O'Brien has, in effect, contributed to and driven the price of rent up 12%, making multimillionaires of anyone with a bed to offer. That has exacerbated our housing problems. When there is an elephant in the room, we should mention it. I have been called a racist for mentioning it at every opportunity over the past year and a half. All of us need to welcome what we can, but we also need to wake up to the fact that there is no centralised European approach to this. We are doing much more than many other countries and the people in middle Ireland want to see us stand up.

Deputy Violet-Anne Wynne

Here we are and what an absolutely colossal waste of time this has been. I am sure everyone at home watching will agree. It would have been much more beneficial, and I would have preferred, if we were here debating a motion that highlighted a constructive argument and solutions such as a motion on crime and policing or focus on public safety or even a motion on what should be done about the GRA's a near unanimous no-confidence vote earlier this year. Instead, we stand here wasting two hours and 27 minutes, and more, of Dáil time, in the second last week of the year's term. It is a complete farce if I have ever seen one. It is all because of a political stunt that has gone way too far.

We need leaders in this country who will do more. I would have hoped that with the little time we have left before Christmas that the finger would be pulled out. It would have been great to see such a focus on the need for the greatest ever winter initiative for homeless people to be put in place. We lost more than 400 people on our streets last year and we do not need or want to lose another soul. There is a cold snap coming and we should not lose people on the streets in 2023, and definitely not due to the fact that everybody here wants to be in power. Let us be real. Is that not what these motions of confidence are about? We have had many in this Dáil term and none has come close to winning. I do not like it when the public are, in effect, picked up and dropped with each one of these motions. This motion is another example of how detached the political system is in its entirety.

Minister for Justice (Deputy Helen McEntee)

First, I thank all Deputies for their contributions to this evening's debate. I know the thoughts of everyone in the House very much remain with the victims of the appalling attack that took place 12 days ago outside Gaelscoil Choláiste Mhuire and my thoughts are, in particular, with the young child and her carer who are both still in a critical condition in hospital. Of course, we are all wishing for their full recovery.

Deputy McDonald has left the Chamber. My colleagues have responded well to her comments. The Deputy and I attended a meeting recently and we both know what was asked of us by parents. Deputy McDonald has failed miserably this evening to fulfil that request from parents.

It is a great honour to be Minister for Justice. I see it as my duty to build stronger and safer communities, ensure that people are and feel safe, support victims, back An Garda Síochána, the Courts Service and prison officers and use the time I have as Minister for good. There are challenges; I have never said there are not. Of course, there are challenges but I believe we are making real progress in addressing them.

Resourcing our gardaí, tackling domestic, sexual and gender-based violence, introducing tougher sentences and giving communities a real say in how they can be part of safety in their own community have been progressed under my watch. Of course, we all want more gardaí but we have a larger budget than ever before. A total of €2.31 billion will be spent next year, a 23% increase since I became Minister. Recruitment into An Garda Síochána is building momentum, following a closure, post Covid. People might not want to admit that, but the college was closed to new recruits for almost two years. We would have had 1,000 additional gardaí to what we have now had the college not closed. Again, we can ignore that but it is a fact.

Between 700 and 800 new recruits will enter the college this year. The momentum will continue and next year we will have a recruitment campaign for An Garda Síochána and the Garda Reserve. We have increased the training allowance by two thirds. We have increased the age at which members can enter An Garda Síochána from 35 to 50. We have also increased the number of staff by more than 50% since 2015. Staff are doing excellent work, but we have also freed up 900 members on the front line. We will do more, not just to support new members but also those who are current members of An Garda Síochána.

We are building new stations. We have the highest ever number of Garda cars and vans. As gardaí build international law enforcement coalitions to bring crime gangs who spread misery in our communities to justice, we support them. Again, that includes the Government deciding only today to open negotiations with the United Arab Emirates on an extradition treaty.

I have passed a series of laws to protect victims and punish perpetrators. We have doubled the maximum sentence for assault causing harm. We have increased the sentence for conspiracy to murder to life. I have worked with colleagues in government to increase the sentence for assaulting a Garda member or an emergency worker. I have worked with Deputy Naughten across the House to improve post-release supervision for sex offenders. We have stand-alone offences of stalking and non-fatal strangulation. Only last Wednesday, we passed legislation to allow the Garda to roll out body worn cameras, starting in Dublin city centre, next year. I will introduce facial recognition technology to support gardaí even further.

Tackling domestic, sexual and gender-based violence, as colleagues have alluded to, has been one of my top priorities. I have been very fortunate on some occasions to have the full support of the House. I was glad to have the support of Deputies Daly, Ó Ríordáin and others when we passed the Bill to establish a new domestic violence agency, Cuan, which will be up and running in January. The legislation to update our incitement to hatred laws to introduce hate crimes was supported almost unanimously in the House.

I believe our zero-tolerance plan will have a real effect on taking the epidemic of domestic violence and dealing with it once and for all. It is important to remember what we are talking about. Every single day in this country women are abused, strangled and beaten. They are victims of coercive control. They are stalked. They are sometimes stabbed and even worse. We are doubling the number of refuges to support them.

We are reforming education and raising awareness of the real attitudes which underpin so much of this violence and abuse. Working with Deputy Howlin, again across the House, we enacted laws to criminalise intimate-image abuse. I have increased funding to front-line organisations that protect victims to record levels and established a victims' forum to make sure all victims of every crime have a say when it comes to laws, policy and services. Separate from these issues, we have introduced a series of measures to help bring down the cost of insurance. We have rebalanced the duty of care and, building on the wonderful work of my colleague Deputy Flanagan, I introduced personal injury guidelines. I have a plan to build 600 more prison spaces and, to Deputy Ó Ríordáin's point, actions have been brought forward to deal with mental health and addiction problems with prisoners, actions from an excellent plan set about and chaired by his former colleague Kathleen Lynch. We have appointed 24 additional judges this year to speed up our courts. This is the record I stand on and am proud to stand over.

I have also listened to those who have concerns about safety in Dublin. We have a wonderful capital city, enriched by the many nationalities in it. I understand that everyone living in it, working in it or visiting it wants to feel safe and be safe, and I know that is not always the case. I have listened to the experiences of those living and working in the city, not just in the past few weeks but over the past number of years. That is why we opened the O'Connell Street Garda station, reopened Fitzgibbon Street station and launched Operation Citizen to prioritise high-visibility policing. It is why €10 million for extra overtime was allocated to complement the work of the 3,742 gardaí who currently work in Dublin.

We all know, however, that policing alone cannot resolve this. We have all said this in the Chamber. We must be mindful of the responsibility we ask of our city centre in shouldering the accommodating of many vulnerable people. I have established a new partnership in the north inner city to bring everybody around the table, including An Garda Síochána, Members of the Oireachtas and local representatives, community representatives, healthcare providers and education providers, all with the intention of making sure everybody has a say in their safety. We have doubled funding to youth justice, working closely with the Minister of State, Deputy Browne, and because of the reforms of An Garda Síochána, we now have dedicated community policing teams in our city centre, further strengthening the bonds between gardaí and the communities they serve. Of course, the more gardaí we have, the stronger those teams can be.

A Cheann Comhairle, the scenes we saw in Dublin on 23 November were disgraceful. Seeing people exploit an appalling attack on schoolchildren to loot, riot and burn shocked us all and these thugs and criminals will be brought to justice. An Garda Síochána contained the riot and restored law and order in the space of hours, and the men and women who put themselves at risk will always have my support. The same cannot be said for Sinn Féin. It has been quick to fall back on its usual playbook of division and disunity, and of using an appalling situation to play politics, point-score and once again undermine An Garda Síochána. It is worth repeating that when I pick up the phone to ring the Garda Commissioner or talk to gardaí, it is to offer support. When Sinn Féin does so, it is to call for the resignation of the Commissioner.

It is 12 days on, a week since the previous debate, and nothing constructive has come from the Sinn Féin benches. When people want stability, Sinn Féin wants instability. Its mantra is to sack, sue and bully. Deputy McDonald wants to fire the Garda Commissioner. Deputy Ó Broin wants to fire civil servants who disagree with him. When we need calm heads and our own citizens are in trouble abroad, Sinn Féin wants to expel ambassadors. When journalists report facts freely and fairly, it sues. Anyone in its party with an independent thought is bullied until they comply or leave. It might surprise Deputy McDonald to learn this is not an episode of "The Apprentice"; you cannot fire your way out of a situation. It is a serious business that requires judgment and leadership, qualities she and her party repeatedly fail to show.

Let us ask ourselves, if Sinn Féin were in government and Deputy McDonald were Taoiseach, after sacking the Minister for Justice and the Garda Commissioner, who would she turn to for advice on security and policing? Would it be the same republican family who said it was okay to ignore Covid rules for a political funeral, the same group of people she consulted before she unashamedly politicised policing in the past? This is nothing new. When Gerry Adams was arrested and questioned as part of the investigation into the murder of Jean McConville, she said it was politically contrived. She immediately sought to undermine the Commissioner when he was appointed in 2018, and now Sinn Féin attacks the Commissioner and our Garda time and again. I will quote a line Deputy McDonald will know, given she quotes this poet regularly, "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time." No matter how Sinn Féin has tried to fool the Irish people, its first instincts are still the same, namely, to undermine and attack our Garda, and to sow disunity and division when people want unity and leadership.

It has been a difficult few weeks, above all for the victims of the recent attack, for their families and communities, and they remain at the forefront of my mind. So too is the safety of Irish people. All my actions during my time in office have been taken to make sure people are safe and feel safe. It is for that reason I will continue to work to build stronger, safer communities, and I will not be deterred by a Sinn Féin Party which seeks to sow division and disunity for its own ends.

Question put:

The Dáil divided: Tá, 83; Níl, 63; Staon, 1.

Tá

Berry, Cathal.
Brophy, Colm.
Browne, James.
Bruton, Richard.
Burke, Colm.
Burke, Peter.
Butler, Mary.
Byrne, Thomas.
Cahill, Jackie.
Calleary, Dara.
Canney, Seán.
Cannon, Ciarán.
Carroll MacNeill, Jennifer.
Chambers, Jack.
Collins, Niall.
Costello, Patrick.
Coveney, Simon.
Cowen, Barry.
Creed, Michael.
Crowe, Cathal.
Devlin, Cormac.
Dillon, Alan.
Donohoe, Paschal.
Duffy, Francis Noel.
Durkan, Bernard J.
English, Damien.
Feighan, Frankie.
Fitzpatrick, Peter.
Flaherty, Joe.
Flanagan, Charles.
Fleming, Sean.
Foley, Norma.
Grealish, Noel.
Harris, Simon.
Haughey, Seán.
Heydon, Martin.
Higgins, Emer.
Kehoe, Paul.
Lahart, John.
Lawless, James.
Leddin, Brian.
Lowry, Michael.
MacSharry, Marc.
Madigan, Josepha.
Martin, Catherine.
Martin, Micheál.
Matthews, Steven.
McAuliffe, Paul.
McConalogue, Charlie.
McEntee, Helen.
McGrath, Michael.
McGuinness, John.
McHugh, Joe.
Moynihan, Aindrias.
Moynihan, Michael.
Murnane O'Connor, Jennifer.
Naughten, Denis.
Naughton, Hildegarde.
Noonan, Malcolm.
O'Brien, Darragh.
O'Brien, Joe.
O'Callaghan, Jim.
O'Connor, James.
O'Dea, Willie.
O'Donnell, Kieran.
O'Donovan, Patrick.
O'Dowd, Fergus.
O'Gorman, Roderic.
O'Sullivan, Christopher.
O'Sullivan, Pádraig.
Ó Cathasaigh, Marc.
Ó Cuív, Éamon.
Phelan, John Paul.
Rabbitte, Anne.
Richmond, Neale.
Ring, Michael.
Shanahan, Matt.
Smith, Brendan.
Smyth, Niamh.
Smyth, Ossian.
Stanton, David.
Troy, Robert.
Varadkar, Leo.

Níl

Andrews, Chris.
Bacik, Ivana.
Barry, Mick.
Boyd Barrett, Richard.
Brady, John.
Browne, Martin.
Buckley, Pat.
Cairns, Holly.
Carthy, Matt.
Clarke, Sorca.
Collins, Joan.
Collins, Michael.
Connolly, Catherine.
Conway-Walsh, Rose.
Cronin, Réada.
Crowe, Seán.
Cullinane, David.
Daly, Pa.
Doherty, Pearse.
Donnelly, Paul.
Ellis, Dessie.
Farrell, Mairéad.
Fitzmaurice, Michael.
Funchion, Kathleen.
Gannon, Gary.
Guirke, Johnny.
Healy-Rae, Danny.
Healy-Rae, Michael.
Howlin, Brendan.
Kelly, Alan.
Kenny, Gino.
Kenny, Martin.
Kerrane, Claire.
Mac Lochlainn, Pádraig.
McDonald, Mary Lou.
McGrath, Mattie.
McNamara, Michael.
Mitchell, Denise.
Munster, Imelda.
Murphy, Catherine.
Murphy, Paul.
Mythen, Johnny.
Nash, Ged.
Nolan, Carol.
O'Callaghan, Cian.
O'Reilly, Louise.
O'Rourke, Darren.
Ó Broin, Eoin.
Ó Laoghaire, Donnchadh.
Ó Murchú, Ruairí.
Ó Ríordáin, Aodhán.
Ó Snodaigh, Aengus.
Pringle, Thomas.
Quinlivan, Maurice.
Ryan, Patricia.
Sherlock, Sean.
Shortall, Róisín.
Smith, Bríd.
Smith, Duncan.
Stanley, Brian.
Tóibín, Peadar.
Tully, Pauline.
Ward, Mark.

Staon

Murphy, Verona.

Tellers: Tá, Deputies Hildegarde Naughton and Cormac Devlin; Níl, Deputies Pádraig Mac Lochlainn and Denise Mitchell.

Question declared.

Dáil Éireann debate - Tuesday, 5 Dec 2023