Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 9 Mar 1971

Vol. 252 No. 4

Private Members' Business. - Adjournment Debate: Fire Protection Measures.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): On the Order Paper today two questions stood in the names of Deputy Liam Cosgrave and myself in relation to recent damage by fires in the city. Deputy Cosgrave asked the Minister for Justice if, in view of the many serious fires which have occurred recently, he will take immediate steps to increase the Garda force in Dublin city. I asked the Minister what steps he proposes to take to protect Dublin city stores and other buildings against fires; and if he will make a statement on the matter. I put down my question today for the following reasons. First, in the last couple of weeks there have been a series of fires in this city, some of them disastrous in their extent and in the damage caused and others causing less damage simply because the plans did not fully materialise.

Three fires took place on the same night, one in Clerys, one in Easons and one in Arnotts. Those fires did not succeed in razing those buildings to the ground but, as I said, that was because the plans did not materialise. There have been other fires since then in this city, all taking place at night and all following the same pattern. Such reports as appeared in the press would appear to present irrefutable evidence that those fires were planned, were malicious and most important of all that there is in our midst a conspiracy to burn down and destroy millions of pounds worth of property in this city.

The result of this obvious conspiracy is to create a sense of complete insecurity among property owners in the city and to expose the ratepayers of Dublin to a bill for millions of pounds involved in the planned fires. This is at a time when credit is difficult, when the economy is in an unhealthy state and when business in general is finding difficulty. When I put down my question I hoped to get a statement and an assurance from the Minister that he fully appreciated the gravity and the enormity of the situation and that he would leave no stone unturned to track down the conspirators and to protect the city of Dublin and its citizens from arson and in this way to restore confidence and a sense of security.

When I put down my question I certainly did not think it would be necessary to bring the Minister in here on the Adjournment to impress on him the necessity for carrying out his duty to property owners to protect their property. However, the Minister's reply was to my mind so casual and seemed to show that he did not appreciate what is at stake that I had no alternative but to force the issue on the Adjournment. The Minister said in his reply:

The nature of the threat in this matter is such that no increase in Garda strength could possibly be contemplated.

Minister for Justice (Mr. O'Malley)

Read it properly. I did not say that no increase in Garda strength could be contemplated.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): I was going to correct it. I have no intention of trying to mislead the House or of misquoting the Minister. The Minister said:

The nature of the threat in this matter is such that no increase in Garda strength that could possibly be contemplated could make any significant difference. The onus of taking precautions must rest on each individual owner and it would be misleading for me to suggest otherwise. Garda activity in this matter must be directed at seeking to apprehend those responsible in cases were fires are malicious rather than by preventive patrols. Owners have in fact been advised both privately and in public to this effect by the gardaí.

I hope I am not being unfair to the Minister when I say that I interpreted that reply as meaning that there is very little the gardaí can do about those fires and that the Minister is in effect saying that the onus in protecting their property lies on the property owners.

The Minister pointed out the difficulty of the gardaí in preventing this type of crime. As I see the position, and as I have always understood it, there is an obligation on property owners to protect their property against accidental fires. I have always regarded it as part of the duty of the Minister for Justice and the Garda force under him to protect such property and property owners against malicious criminal damage to their property. I say that is particularly so when fires have occurred which show that it is not a case of isolated malice against one property owner, but that on the contrary there is a conspiracy indiscriminately to attack, burn and damage valuable property in the centre of this city. The Minister said it is difficult to detect this sort of crime. It is equally difficult for the property owners to prevent. It may, by a system of night watchmen, be possible to prevent Clerys stores from being razed to the ground but it is not possible to prevent the destruction of thousands of pounds worth of property in half an hour or so. Therefore, I was completely dissatisfied with the Minister's approach to this matter. I put down the question in a bona fide manner expecting to get a reply from the Minister that would be a comfort to the citizens of Dublin and would restore their confidence. On the contrary, the Minister treated this as another day's work which had to be dealt with.

It is much more than that; it is a threat to the very foundations of law and order and the security of the city. The Minister can find sufficient numbers of gardaí to station one outside every bank in order to prevent armed robberies. Indeed, one wonders if it could be said that an unarmed member of the Garda Síochána stationed outside a bank is calculated to prevent an armed robbery or that it is doing anything more than exposing an unarmed garda to attack, sometimes with fatal consequences, as has already happened. I would have been happier if I had heard the Minister saying that while this threat was hanging over us members of the Detective Branch, plain clothes men, would patrol these stores, or stores taken at random, in an effort to apprehend suspicious looking characters and to get to the bottom of this.

The Garda strength in Dublin city is completely inadequate and I am forced to believe that the Conroy Report, which provided for the payment of overtime for gardaí, is forcing the Minister's colleague, the Minister for Finance, to economise unwisely in the question of the strength of the Garda. The Minister in reply to a supplementary question stated that there are 242 more gardaí in the Dublin metropolitan area now than there were three years ago. Look at the situation now compared with three years ago. We had no bank robberies three years ago. We had no necessity for patrolling the banks. I wonder would the Minister tell us how many of these 242 men are absorbed in bank protection duty today. We had not the same type of crimes of violence involving elderly people and their homes as we have today. Furthermore, the time of the gardaí is taken up by marshalling parades and keeping an eye on protesters outside Leinster House and elsewhere, a situation which did not exist three years ago. We have, as I say, the fact that gardaí are working on a time regulated basis which was not the case three years ago. It is no answer to say that there are 242 more men in the city. An analysis of the number of hours worked by gardaí and the additional duties imposed on them, by the things I have mentioned, shows that in effect there are far less garda hours being worked and that the gardaí have less time to devote to what are genuine police duties. I regard the protection of these stores as every bit a police duty, if not more so, as the protection of banks. I would regard it as more of a police duty than regulating traffic. If the position continues as it has been in the past week or two the city will become a vast fire risk. It will be impossible to get insurance companies to undertake risks notwithstanding the Malicious Injuries Act because some of them might not be able to prove their case to the satisfaction of a court. The position will be that either the companies will refuse point blank to take these risks or they will undertake them at prohibitive premiums.

I would urge the Minister to regard the position as something requiring exceptional attention and which simply cannot be dealt with as trivial breaches of the law which the gardaí are expected to take in their stride without being augmented. There is a well planned and well defined conspiracy here and it is the duty of the Minister to take such steps as he can by bringing in further plainclothes men to ensure that this is tracked down and eliminated.

Minister for Justice (Mr. O'Malley)

Deputy Fitzpatrick makes the point that he raises this matter because my reply to his question was casual. He may or may not believe that but in case any member of the public were to believe it I want to say that my reply was in no way casual. It was drafted very carefully. I have reconsidered it carefully since and I am perfectly satisfied with every word of it. I would ask the Deputy to regard every word of it as having been repeated. What I said today was the only answer that a Minister for Justice can give in these circumstances. In my reply to the question today and in reply to the large number of supplementaries, I pointed out that no matter how many gardaí were put on duty in the city of Dublin during the past two weeks, none of these fires could have been prevented. I repeat that once again but I do not know how often it is necessary to repeat it in order that Deputy Fitzpatrick will accept that fact. Regardless of whether he or I may like it, it is something we must accept.

The type of arson he described and, in particular, the use of small incendiary devices, is one that no police force in the world can prevent. Since these fires occurred, a considerable proportion of the Detective Branch in the Dublin Metropolitan area have been engaged almost exclusively on endeavouring to apprehend those responsible. I might add that with regard to three of the serious fires which occurred and in which entire premises were destroyed, the Garda have no evidence to show that they were caused maliciously.

It is unfair to, among others, the ratepayers of Dublin city that Deputy Fitzpatrick should immediately draw the conclusion that the fires were malicious and a result of a criminal conspiracy because there may well be a great cost to ratepayers. Since most, if not all, of the owners of these premises will be applying for compensation for criminal injury, to some extent these matters are sub judice and the question of malice or otherwise should not be mentioned specifically.

There is one point which was not raised by Deputy Fitzpatrick tonight but which was raised earlier today by Deputy O'Donovan when he referred to the fire at the Cavendish premises in Grafton Street. Deputy O'Donovan made certain allegations, one of which was that there was a fire or a burglar alarm ringing for some time which was heard by a number of people before the fire was dealt with. The Deputy alleged that there was no member of the Garda Síochána in Grafton Street at the time. I have had an opportunity of looking into this matter and I am glad to be able to tell the House that the first people to notice this fire were two gardaí in a patrol car in Grafton Street. These gardaí saw a light or flames in the premises. This was at 3.40 a.m. and they called the fire brigade. Apparently nobody had noticed the fire before then and so far as the gardaí are aware there was no bell ringing at any earlier time on that night.

To go back for a moment to the point raised by Deputy Fitzpatrick's suggestion that there should be sufficient gardaí available in Dublin to prevent fires of this kind, I wish to draw his attention to a comparison that, unfortunately, can be made easily in this country at the present time. That is to refer him to a city about 100 miles from here——

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): Surely the Minister is not being serious now?

Mr. O'Malley

The Minister is perfectly serious. It is a matter almost of great moment in that unfortunate city if a night passes during which there is no fire. In that city, as we are all aware, there is a large number of troops and a large number of troops attached to the UDR as well as an extremely large number of police.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): So it was right to say that the Minister does not appreciate the position.

Mr. O'Malley

Notwithstanding all the security forces available there, outbreaks of this type, which are recognised by everybody as being impossible to prevent if people are bent on carrying them out, occur, tragically, with regularity.

If Deputy Fitzpatrick examines the position honestly, he must realise, as I realise, that no number of gardaí can prevent occurrences of this nature. What the gardaí can do and what they have done is to give detailed and continuous advice to property owners as to how they might act in assisting to protect their property. The crime prevention unit of the Garda Síochána have given special advice to a large number of firms on the precautions they can take in this regard. This advice is being repeated recently in public and in private and the crime prevention unit have made many special visits to the larger city stores and warehouses and all other likely targets. Also, the district offices in each district have made a special point of alerting property owners in their district.

Deputy Fitzpatrick went on to say that the Minister for Finance and I— in particular the Minister for Finance —were being parsimonious in authorising overtime and that, accordingly, there are not sufficent gardaí on duty in Dublin. After the accounts for the full financial year, ending 31st March, are available, it will be seen that the facts are quite different from what Deputy Fitzpatrick alleges. The cost of overtime in respect of the gardaí has proved to be astronomical, far beyond what our estimates for it were last year.

With regard to the number of gardaí in the Dublin Metropolitan area, I would point out to the Deputy, as I have done several times before in this House, that there are now 2,341 gardaí in Dublin and that figure excludes all those who are serving at headquarters and the depot because, strictly speaking, those do not come within the Dublin Metropolitan count but there are quite a number of them. This figure represents more than one-third of the entire force of the country and if the Commissioner or I were to transfer any more gardaí to Dublin, we would have a situation in other provincial urban centres and in local areas generally, where there would be a lack of gardaí. Our resources are limited. The Garda force must necessarily be limited. I am satisfied that the Commissioner has deployed the resources that are available to him in the best possible way.

All that remains for me to do is to repeat once more that prevention of fire of this kind, which I regret as much as anybody else, is not a matter which primarily falls within the duty of the gardaí because it is simply humanly and physically impossible for them to prevent all these fires; but they can give advice and they can do, as they are doing at present, everything within their power, with specially augmented forces, to find the culprits and I have no doubt, with the successful record of detection our Garda force enjoys, that they will, in fact, be successful in bringing the culprits to justice at a very early date.

The Dáil adjourned at 11 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 10th March, 1971.