I now come to deal with Private Notice Questions to the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform regarding anti-social behaviour and the recent shooting of a person in Dublin city. I will call on the Deputies in the order in which they submitted their questions to my office.
Private Notice Questions.
Crime Levels.
Charles Flanagan
Ceist:Deputy Charles Flanagan asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the position regarding the murder of a law-abiding citizen in inner-city Dublin at the weekend and the evidence from this murder that a serious societal problem exists whereby anti-social behaviour is rife in certain areas and is capable of escalating into serious violence and even murder; and the urgent need for Government action to tackle the easy availability of dangerous offensive weapons and to address the failure of legislative measures aimed at tackling anti-social behaviour to date.
Joe Costello
Ceist:Deputy Joe Costello asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the steps the Government will take to deal with juvenile crime and the growing availability of handguns in view of the shooting dead of a resident of East Wall, Dublin 1 in cold blood and the earlier targeting and terrorising of the same person and many of his neighbours, the failure of the Government to deal with the anti-social behaviour which is becoming embedded in many urban communities and the total failure of this Government and the previous two Administrations to deal with the increasing availability and deadly use of illegally held guns.
I thank the Deputies for tabling these questions. I begin by expressing my sympathy and that of the Government to the family and friends of the late Aidan O'Kane. The Deputies will appreciate that I am greatly constrained in what I can say about the specific tragic incident which gave rise to these questions. The Garda investigation has reached a stage where it would be inappropriate for me to comment either on the detail surrounding the immediate incident or the circumstances which gave rise to it. That information will emerge in the fullness of time and we will look to see whether any lessons can be learned from it.
As we speak, I understand the Garda has issued a statement that a 16 year old male has been detained in Store Street Garda station. He will appear at the Dublin juvenile District Court No. 55, and will be charged with a serious offence. Several other persons remain in custody.
All I can say for the present is that this death is deplored by all right minded people. As I said, our sympathy goes to the family and friends of Mr. O'Kane, as well as to the wider community in East Wall. I understand the Garda and local community in East Wall work closely together. We hope this tragic incident will reinforce the determination to continue to do so.
Without wishing to comment in any way on the specific details of Mr. O'Kane's death, I intend to deal with two general issues raised in the Deputies' questions, namely, gun crime and public disorder. The stark reality is that there is a growing gun culture in this State which has inevitably had fatal consequences. I accept entirely that our priority must be to rid our society of illegal handguns. That has been a priority in Operation Anvil since its inception in 2005. Under that operation up to 30 November last, over 1,200 firearms had been recovered in Dublin alone and 1,000 in the rest of the country, a total of 2,200 illegally held guns in a relatively short space of time. The Garda will continue to address relentlessly the issue of illegally held guns.
The House will be aware that since my appointment I have expressed concern about the number of handguns that have been licensed in this country since 2004. I am aware the vast majority of licensed firearms holders pursue their interest legitimately. I am also conscious that many of them deeply resent any connection that is made to the issue of licensed handguns in the context of our crime problem. However, as Minister with responsibility for justice, I cannot avoid the reality that the overall number of weapons in circulation and the type of those weapons can add to that gun culture. The specific problem is demonstrated by the fact that 27 licensed handguns have been stolen since 2005 and a further 1,236 other firearms have been stolen during the same period, with a total of 373 recovered. Members can see that there is an ever increasing gun culture, both licensed and unlicensed, in this country.
The issue of handguns generally was highlighted by Mr. Justice Peter Charlton in a judgment last July when he said that any reasonable person is entitled to feel alarmed at the proliferation of handguns. That is the reason I brought forward proposals which include, with limited exceptions relating to Olympic sports, no new licences being issued for handguns and existing licences being renewed only if they meet the requirements of a much more stringent regime. I hope Members on all sides of the House will support these proposals when I bring them before the House. They are not designed needlessly to interfere with the rights of sporting enthusiasts, but to recognise the specific dangers that guns pose. I refer Members to what the Garda Commissioner said to the Committee of Public Accounts about the difficulty he has on the one hand trying to get illegally held guns out of the system while, on the other hand, licensing the same types of handguns under the lacuna that has arisen as a result of a number of court cases in recent times.
While a de facto ban on new handgun licences is already in place, my proposals will be given legislative form in the criminal justice (miscellaneous provisions) Bill which I will bring before the House early in the new year. That Bill will also tackle comprehensively the issue of airsoft guns. I wish to have an outright ban on these guns and to make possession of them in public a serious offence. The proliferation of airsoft guns has been brought to my attention by Members on all sides of the House. The Bill will also contain measures which the Garda Commissioner has suggested for tightening up the law to deal with knives. I have had many meetings with the Garda Commissioner and Garda senior management on the issue of illegal handguns. We have a duty to examine the existing licensing arrangements for handguns, which will allow a proliferation of handguns before we have even had an opportunity in the House to state what we believe should be public policy in this regard.
All Members of the House recognise the problems posed for communities by public disorder. There are groups of youths in many communities whose behaviour has no regard for the rights of others and who can cause considerable distress to their neighbours. It would be unfortunate, however, in the light of one or a few incidents to characterise all badly behaved young people as potential killers. Tackling public order issues is a priority for both the Government and the Garda, as is evident from the substantial resources that we continue to commit to front-line policing.
Some public comment has been made about the supposed failure of the anti-social behaviour order legislation. That may be based on a misunderstanding about the procedures set out in that legislation. It sets out an incremental procedure for addressing anti-social behaviour by adults and children. With regard to children, these range from a warning from a member of the Garda Síochána, to a good behaviour contract including the child and his or her parents or guardian, referral to the Garda juvenile diversion programme and to the making of a behaviour order by the Children Court. Moreover, it overlooks the point that the main legislation used by the Garda Síochána in dealing with public order is the Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act 1994.
Since 2002, when the Garda introduced Operation Encounter specifically to target anti-social behaviour, over 510,000 such offences have been detected. Most of these offences, of their nature, are only recorded as a result of Garda enforcement activity and the statistics paint a picture of extensive levels of Garda activity. I recognise, however, that dealing with public disorder is an issue on which co-operation between gardaí and the local community is absolutely vital. For that reason I am proceeding with the roll out of joint policing committees following the successful pilot phase. As a result of the pilot phase, a committee was established in the Dublin City Council area along with further sub-committees in each of the city's five areas. These committees enable local authority representatives and officials, the gardaí in the area, Oireachtas Members and community interests to get together in a structured way to discuss matters affecting the policing of their areas. I believe this approach has great potential.
The House will appreciate that I have confined myself to dealing with matters for which I have direct ministerial responsibility. However, we will ignore at our peril the fact that policing and the criminal justice system alone do not tackle all the issues that must be addressed.
I will ask the main spokespersons to ask two supplementary questions, after which I will include other Members.
I am grateful for the opportunity to debate this matter, in however limited form. I am also grateful to the Minister for attending. I join him in expressing my sympathy and that of the Fine Gael Party to the family of the deceased and, indeed, the community of the East Wall area.
The Minister will be aware that nine months ago, following the savage and brutal murder of two Polish persons in Drimnagh, the House held a day long debate, which was described at the time by Government sources as a watershed. However, the situation has deteriorated not only in Dublin but also in other urban areas since then. There is a crisis of confidence with regard to dealing with criminal justice matters in a comprehensive way.
This is the 20th gun murder so far this year. The situation is such that urgent and comprehensive action is required. I share the Minister's view that it would not be appropriate to comment on any matters that might be of evidential value in this case, but a well-respected worker in the inner city area, Fr. Peter McVerry, is on record as saying that guns are freely available to young people in inner city Dublin. We are not dealing here with legally held and lawfully licensed guns but with young people and illegally held guns. We are dealing with a society that has given rise to a situation where children as young as ten years of age are engaged in the drug courier business and a 12 year old was recently seen wearing a bullet proof vest as a method of self defence.
The gun culture among young people is a very serious problem. Where are these guns coming from and what is the Minister doing to deal with the issue of illegally held firearms in this city? What action does he propose to take?
As I said earlier, the Government put Operation Anvil in place in 2005 and gave the Garda Commissioner substantial resources for it each year since then. Indeed, at a time when less money is available for next year, I increased the overall budget for Operation Anvil from €20 million to €21 million. I specifically told the Garda Commissioner that the money had to be earmarked for organised crime and particularly the issue of the illegal gun culture. Look at the figures for the number of guns seized in the Dublin area. I have political and policy responsibility but ultimately it is an issue for the Garda, which has the resources. The gardaí are the people on the front line who have the responsibility of ridding our society of illegally held handguns. As I stated, the Garda seized 1,200 firearms in the Dublin metropolitan district and made 7,000 arrests for serious offences, including murder, serious assault, robbery and burglary. Since 2005, approximately 65,000 searches have been carried out and property to the value of €31 million has been recovered. That is what the Garda is doing on behalf of the State and the Government has provided it with the resources to enable it to perform these functions.
Neither the Government nor any Member on any side is complacent about murder. Nevertheless, crime statistics from the Central Statistics Office show a marked reduction in homicide offences in the third quarter of 2008. Percentage decreases have been recorded across the spectrum, with the number of murders, cases of dangerous driving leading to death and manslaughter all in decline. Year-on-year, homicide offences decreased by 50%, with the number of murders declining by 33%. The Government is not complacent in any shape or form, which is the reason, despite fewer resources, that I specifically earmarked resources for tackling crime, particularly organised crime and the gun culture.
Deputy Flanagan continually states that I am concentrating on licensed hand guns. As he will be aware, however, extremely tough provisions on the possession of illegal firearms, particularly handguns, have been in place since we made changes to the 2006 Act. Mandatory sentences of ten and five years are in force, depending on the type of offence. We must go further, particularly in view of comments made by Mr. Justice Peter Charlton in July and, more recently, Mr. Justice George Birmingham, who is not unknown to the Deputy. The latter, for example, referred to the reason certain people believe they need to have licensed handguns in their possession. The combination of illegal, licensed and so-called airsoft handguns will quickly give rise to a gun culture. We need to address this issue quickly. As policymakers, the Government, Members of the Oireachtas and I, as Minister, have a duty in this respect, which is the reason I asked for support on the issue. The Deputy should not speak out of both sides of his mouth on this matter.
Does the Minister accept that a UK-style gun and gang culture has developed in this city and beyond? Does he also accept that a distinction must be made between violent anti-social behaviour and organised criminal drug gangs? Has he done an assessment of what impact the reduction in Garda overtime payments by in excess of €20 million will have on dealing with anti-social behaviour?
Does the Minister accept that we now have proof that young children are drifting out of the education system early and into a life of crime, guns, drugs and violent anti-social behaviour and that this pattern will only be broken by a comprehensive scheme involving his Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform and the Department of Education and Science as well as the Office of the Minister for Children? Does he accept, for example, that funding for a youth diversion project in the inner city established in response to anti-social behaviour on the Liffey board walk and involving a one-stop-shop was cut by the Health Service Executive earlier this year, leaving people with no alternative other than the attractiveness of a life of crime and anti-social behaviour?
Is a Cabinet sub-committee involving the Department in place? Does he accept that the response must involve more than criminal justice and must include action by the Minister's colleagues in the Departments of Health and Children and Education and Science as well as agencies such as the HSE? Until a comprehensive plan by a Cabinet sub-committee is in place, the problem will unfortunately deteriorate. What is required is a comprehensive plan of action, rather than having mere statements in the House following a tragic event. We have had these too often and they are insufficient as they do not comply with the service obligation on the House and, specifically, the Minister to deal with this problem.
While Garda overtime will be reduced next year, one must consider the sizeable number of gardaí recruited in recent years. Next year alone, Garda numbers will increase from 14,267 to almost 15,000. These figures do not take into account the substantial civilianisation programme under which 2,600 civilians do office work done previously by gardaí in Garda stations. The civilianisation process is a response to views expressed by Members from all sides that gardaí must be deployed on the streets.
The Deputy, who is being political on this matter, should be aware that the number of gardaí will reach 15,000 by the end of 2009, whereas the Fine Gael Party promised in Deputy Kenny's "contract" that it would reach 15,000 by 2012. If we were to listen to Deputy Richard Bruton on the budget, the cut in the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform's budget would be larger than the 2.7% reduction introduced in October.
On youth diversion projects, my Department works on a multi-agency, ongoing basis with a number of agencies, including the Health Service Executive. The Taoiseach and I regularly attend general security and crime briefings provided by Garda management. On the specific case in East Wall, as I indicated, it was argued in some quarters that insufficient community gardaí were available. There are, I believe, 28 or 30 community gardaí attached to Store Street Garda station. Yesterday, a journalist complimented the Garda on the substantial number of community gardaí in the area. Four community gardaí are deployed on beat patrol in East Wall on a constant basis. Three of these are deployed daily between 10 a.m. and 2 a.m. from Monday to Saturday, with two deployed during the same period on Sundays. The area has a 24-hour armed presence and a community policing mobile patrol car is in operation from 8 p.m. until 5 a.m. every Friday and Saturday night. Additional pedal cycle patrols are deployed in the area and, arising from its proximity to Dublin Port, checkpoints are regularly conducted in the area between 6 p.m. and midnight by the divisional traffic unit.
A number of operations are also in place, one of which, Operation Intent, involves having two public order vans deployed patrolling the immediate area from Thursday to Sunday night from 8 p.m. until 4 a.m. One sergeant and six gardaí are involved, while plain clothes and uniform patrols are also deployed in the area. There is, therefore, a substantial Garda presence in the East Wall area.
The involvement of the Garda in youth diversion projects in the East Wall area is substantial. Four such projects are funded by my Department with a view to assisting young people and diverting them from crime. The HAY project in Dunne Street, which operates under Fitzgibbon Street Garda station, had 19 participants in 2007 and received funding of €46,000 for the year. The project did not have a co-ordinator for most of 2007. The Swan project in Dunne Street, which operates from Store Street Garda station, also received a substantial funding allocation of €65,500. The DIME project in Hardwicke Street had 23 participants in 2007 and received annual funding of approximately €100,000. The NICKOL project in Buckingham Street, which operates under the Fitzgibbon Street Garda district, had 20 participants in 2007 and received a funding allocation of €130,000. Certain statements are incorrect because gardaí are involved not only in policing, but are also doing substantial work——-
The Minister has tried this before. I have not been critical of the Garda.
It has been suggested that the East Wall area has not had a Garda presence whereas there has been a substantial Garda presence in the area.
I did not make such a suggestion.
I am not saying the Deputy voiced this criticism but it was made.
I am concerned about whether the time for this question is being shared fairly. Given that the discussion must conclude in a few minutes, I will not have a chance to ask a question not to speak of putting a supplementary question.
I ask the Deputy to put his questions.
I thank the Ceann Comhairle for allowing time for private notice questions. I offer my sympathies to the family of Mr. O'Kane and the community in East Wall. I know many of the people there very well and often met Mr. O'Kane in the past walking his two dogs at the junction of Shemalier Road and Ravensdale Road, which is near Bargy Road where he was shot. I compliment the gardaí for the speed with which they investigated the matter and the co-operation they received from the community in East Wall.
This is an appalling crime. It is the worst crime that has been committed in my constituency that I know of since I have been in politics and is a new low in anti-social behaviour. Anti-social behaviour is embedded in certain communities across urban areas, and overflows into many communities in smaller towns and cities in rural areas. It has been worsening and coarsening over time.
There is a question over handguns. The Minister stated that 1,200 weapons have been seized in the Dublin area, which amounts to 300 per annum over four years and is almost one per day. Some 1,000 were seized in the rest of the country. This is a substantial number of guns. Does the Minister know the breakdown of those between shotguns and handguns? I understand they are virtually all shotguns. There is no successful action by the gardaí in the seizure of handguns. From where are they coming? How are they getting into the possession of the people who use them? How are they getting into the possession of young people? Does the Minister have any answers?
The Minister concluded that there was a significant level of policing in the area. The 24-hour policing and Thursday to Friday policing to which he referred did not take place in the East Wall area, but in Sheriff Street which is a neighbouring community and not the area we are discussing. It looks very impressive but the Minister is talking about a no-go area. There should be no no-go areas anywhere in the city, but that is what it is coming to.
Operation Anvil should no longer be in existence. It was set up as an overtime operation because there were not enough gardaí to conduct the business. We now have almost 15,000 gardaí but Operation Anvil works on the basis of overtime. Many of the seizures are made during this overtime activity by the gardaí. This degrades much of the work done by them on a normal basis. The Minister should have a fresh look at this aspect.
Regarding anti-social behaviour, there is a serious issue of parental responsibility in the general area. Other Ministers should be in the House to discuss this matter. There are youngsters — boys and girls, pre-teens and those in their early and late teens — wandering around at all hours of the day and night with no parental responsibility involved. It is a matter which must be addressed. The community policing fora established must be expedited and given more resources because it is necessary to bring the various communities together. The experience of East Wall is also being felt in many other areas. There needs to be a cohesive response.
The gardaí are doing a reasonably good job but they are not responding effectively to the problems now embedded in the area. Since this situation happened in one area, we warned the Garda it would happen in other areas, and there would be fatalities and injuries. Unfortunately, we never expected it to happen in the East Wall area. There is a serious problem. Weapons are readily available, anti-social behaviour has worsened and there is a coarsening of society with young people being beyond the control of their peers, neighbours and parents. Unless the situation is addressed comprehensively it can only worsen.
I agree with Deputy Costello on the matter of parental responsibility. I was Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs for five years, from 1997 to 2002. During that time I was aware of and involved in the build-up of community development projects around the country, and tried to assist disadvantaged geographic areas in particular. Many issues revolved around responses by multi-agency and non-governmental organisations to try and assist communities with problems such as the ones Deputy Costello enunciated.
Regarding community policing, I am heartened to see the number of community police is approximately 630, which is something most Deputies would accept is a good change from yesteryear, when gardaí were not as involved in local communities as they have been in recent years.
Deputy Costello raised the issue of overtime. I do not agree with him. In any police force, there must be an element of overtime in order to respond to particular events that can arise. Without it a response would not be possible. I do not agree that Operation Anvil should cease. One can earmark money specifically for it when one sees the difficulties in places such as Limerick and Dublin and where there needs to be a specific response over and above normal policing.
I do not have the figures on the division of handguns. A substantial number of the 2,200 guns seized under the operation were handguns. Operation Anvil is earmarked specifically to target organised crime. I do not have the figures with me but I can provide them if Deputy Costello tables a parliamentary question. In yesteryear, when crimes were committed by criminals using firearms, they used sawn-off shotguns. The advent and availability of the handgun in this country has made matters more difficult for the Garda and has reduced the number of sawn-off shotguns used in robberies.
The Garda Commissioner has said to me that the ability to conceal a handgun in a pocket or such like is a serious issue. It recently happened in Dublin, not far from Deputy Costello's area, that the Garda apprehended a person on a bicycle, whom it believed to be on his way to commit a murder and found a handgun strapped to the bicycle seat. If this House does not take some action, not only on illegal handguns as we have been doing, where we have given the Garda resources to act, but also on the proliferation of handguns generally, we would, as Mr. Justice Peter Charleton has said, be in dereliction of our duty.
I fully agree with Deputy Costello on the issue of parental responsibility. We introduced legislation on anti-social behaviour in 2006. Substantial data is available on its effectiveness. It takes time for it to become fully effective as a number of procedures must be gone through before ASBOs can be issued. Additional procedures apply specifically to children. From the beginning of March 2007 until the end of October this year, 907 warnings were issued to adults, 548 to children, 12 behaviour contracts were entered into between children and their parents and a number of applications were made for ASBOs. There are probably not as many as people would like but they must go through a procedure over time. Given this, I have no doubt the number of ASBOs will increase.
Can the Minister provide further clarification on handguns? He stated that 2,200 guns were seized, which works out at 550 per annum over four years. That is a colossal number of weapons. Do gardaí have any idea where all those weapons came from? How many of them were licensed? Why would anybody need to have a licensed handgun, unless he or she is a pistol shooting competitor? Shotguns are used for hunting, so where are all those handguns coming from? Is it that the huge amount of drugs coming into the country are accompanied by a supply of handguns? Is this why they are finding their way to a lower age group? Does the leadership of the Garda have any opinion on this matter? There is very little ground for legally held handguns, so where are they all coming from?
We have already had the appalling vista of endemic gangland crime, as this is the 20th fatal shooting this year. However, in this case, an innocent victim in the privacy of his own home was targeted following a petty dispute and a handgun was used to kill him. Nothing that the Minister has said relieves that appalling vista. How could such a quantity of guns be seized? What percentage of them would have been legally held? Is the situation so bad that they are two a penny in this country?
The 2,200 firearms that have been seized since 2005 — 1,200 of them in Dublin and 1,000 in the rest of the country — are obviously illegally held. In recent times, it is clear that handguns have been used much more often by criminal gangs, due to the advantages of concealment. That is why we owe it to ourselves in this House not to allow for policy on the hoof, as per the decision made in 2004 by Judge Maureen Harding Clarke. I am not criticising the judge, but as a result of that decision, we have gone from a situation where zero handguns were licensed in the State to a situation where 1,800 handguns are now licensed.
How many of those handguns were reported as stolen?
Twenty seven of them have been reported stolen since 2005.
Have any of those guns been used by criminal gangs?
One only has to look at some of the websites. The Deputy asked a valid question. Why do legitimate people need handguns? That is the question I have been asking myself——
They are sporting guns.
They are used in firing ranges with live ammunition. I discussed this with my Cabinet colleagues, and Members on that side of the House have come to me——
Just one.
No, there have been more than one. I tell them I would like to hear their views on this.
This is not the real issue.
This is not the issue we are discussing today.
The Minister is raising it.
I was asked why legitimate people would want handguns. Judge Peter Charleton's decision was reiterated by Judge George Bermingham and by Judge Kevin Kilraine when he was deciding an issue in Donegal——
Gangland figures are not using legally held handguns.
We must look at this from a holistic point of view. The Garda has been very successful in seizing 2,200 firearms, a large proportion of which would be handguns. Will we allow the proliferation of licensed handguns to the other side? Not all illegal handguns are brought in with illegal drug consignments, although gardaí generally come across firearms in those hauls. It is possible that a large proportion of these illegal handguns are coming across the Border. It is probably one of the most accessible routes, because most of the ports and airports are manned by security. The Garda has been extremely successful with these seizures.
I do not agree with the Labour Party on this. It might not be party policy, but Deputy Costello said that we should get rid of Operation Anvil. I do not agree with that. When the Estimates process was ongoing, I made a decision to increase the money for that operation.
On a point of order, I said that Operation Anvil was set up in 2003 by the——
It was set up in 2005.
No, it was set up in 2003.
2005.
This is like picking Lotto numbers.
I will not argue the toss. It was set up at a time when there was a shortage of gardaí and there was an epidemic of killing by drug barons. It was set up on a temporary basis as an overtime operation. I would have thought it would have been scaled down and that the functions would have been taken over by gardaí working in normal time.
That is not a point of order at all. I have to move on; Deputy Timmins is offering.
I strongly believe that there is a correlation between juvenile delinquency and educational disadvantage, particularly in the area of educational literacy. There has been a failure to recognise literacy difficulties in this country. If and when they are identified, there is not the ability or the knowledge out there to address them. Will the Minister try to seek out some data to establish the correlation between literacy difficulties and juvenile delinquency? It exists and I know that one of the Minister's predecessors had intended getting that information, but I am not sure if he came up with it.
That question should probably be pursued with another Minister.
I can undertake to get that information. However, issues like this have to be tackled on a multi-agency basis. I was a great supporter of community development projects when I was Minister for Social and Family Affairs. The youth diversion projects have been very successful, and I gave an example of the four that are in existence in the East Wall area alone. There are about 100 of these projects across the country and about €12 million has been given to them in 2008. Some of these projects are in my own constituency and I know they are very successful. They deal with the other agencies as well.
The Minister has spent the bulk of the last 45 minutes dealing with a High Court judgment on legally held firearms and informing us of his ban. There may well be merits in that policy and I look forward to the debate on it. Has he got evidence that the members of the notorious inner-city gangs or the Keane-Collopys and McCarthy-Dundons in Limerick apply for handgun licences in the District Court and then go out and kill people? I do not think that he does. Are we missing the main point here?
In conclusion, I wish to draw the Minister's attention to the number of juvenile liaison officers, which is a fact that needs to be addressed. Juvenile liaison officers assist in providing a service to teenagers who may be about to start a life of anti-social behaviour, or worse. While I accept the Minister's claim that the Garda has more than 14,000 members, I remind him that it has a mere 100 juvenile liaison officers. I suggest that there should be a greater concentration of juvenile liaison officers within the force, particularly in areas affected by high levels of anti-social behaviour. Juvenile liaison officers are effective in those areas where they are working. I ask the Minister to discuss this matter with the Garda authorities the next time he meets them.
The Deputy is being somewhat facetious when he suggests that I am concentrating on the issue of legal handguns. That is not the case.
The record will show that it is.
As I said earlier, significant resources have been provided to the Garda over recent years. As a result, the force has seized a substantial number of handguns. I mentioned earlier that approximately 65,000 searches for firearms and drugs have been undertaken by the Garda since 2005. While the main concentration is in this area, we have to deal with other situations as they arise. I mentioned licensed handguns in the context of one of the issues that has arisen. I will say no more than that. I would be very interested——
Such weapons may merit a mention, but they were the subject of the bulk of the Minister's response.
The Deputy is speaking out of both sides of his mouth on that issue. Juvenile liaison officers are working closely and successfully with local communities on youth diversion projects. The number of gardaí has increased over recent years. We hope the strength of the force will increase from 14,200 to 14,900 next year. If that happens, there will be scope to employ more juvenile liaison officers. That is ultimately an issue for the Garda Commissioner, however, rather than for me.
The Minister should talk to him about it.
He should listen to people like Deputy Flanagan on both sides of the House. I remind the House that 630 gardaí are involved in community policing throughout the country. The more gardaí are redeployed within the overall force to deal solely with specific issues, the greater the dilution of the ability of gardaí to deal with ordinary day-to-day policing issues. While we need specialised gardaí to deal with some issues, it is important to realise that the force also has to look after other policing duties.
Written Answers follow Adjournment Debate.