Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 2 February 2006
1 Mr. J. O’Keeffe asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform his views on the amount of serious crime, including homicides, committed by people out on bail; the figures of same; and his proposals to deal with the situation. [3628/06]
Amharc ar fhreagra2 Mr. Costello asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the reason for the dramatic increase in headline crimes in 2005; the measures he proposes to introduce to tackle the spiralling incidence of murder, gangland killings, rape and drug abuse; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3553/06]
Amharc ar fhreagra4 Mr. J. O’Keeffe asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform his views on the huge concern among the public about the spiralling crime figures just published; and his proposals to deal with the crime epidemic. [3629/06]
Amharc ar fhreagraI propose to take Questions Nos. 1, 2 and 4 together.
Question No. 1 is to some degree unrelated as it deals with a separate issue from Questions Nos. 2 and 4. The last two questions involve the general crime figures but Question No. 1 relates to crimes committed by people on bail.
I will deal with all the issues.
It is the Minister's prerogative and there will be 18 minutes for the questions.
I believe it is incorrect procedure. The question is about the specific problem of crimes committed by people who are on bail. That is a separate issue from the general epidemic of crime. However, I can do no more than protest.
It is absurd to state that there has been a dramatic increase in headline crime for 2005 when the level of headline crime for 2005 is 4.4% lower than the level for 2002. I did not hear the Opposition Deputies state that there was a dramatic fall in headline crime when there was a decrease of 3% recorded for 2003 and a further decrease of 4% in 2004 compared with 2003. Since I took the decision to publish crime statistics on a quarterly basis at the beginning of 2003, I have consistently emphasised that care must be taken in interpreting the statistics, especially when considering short-term fluctuations and extrapolating trends over short periods.
I will briefly discuss long-term crime patterns. The level of headline crime in 2005 is lower than that for 2003 by 1.6% and for 2002 by 4.4%. Furthermore, in 1995, with a population of almost 3.6 million people, there were 29 crimes per 1,000 of the population, while in 2005, with a population of over 4.1 million, there were 24.6 crimes per 1,000 of the population. That is a significant decrease in the level of criminality in our population.
Our crime rate continues to compare very favourably with those of our nearest neighbours. In England and Wales, in the year April 2003 to March 2004, the most recent year for which figures are available, 113 crimes were committed per 1,000 population. In 2004-05 in Scotland there were 86.3 crimes per 1,000 population and in Northern Ireland there were 69 crimes per 1,000 population compared with our rate of 24.6 per 1,000.
Moreover, there have been significant reductions in 2005 in the incidence of manslaughter, down 50%; aggravated sexual assault, down 43%; robbery of cash and goods in transit, down 27%, which reflects in part the changes made as a result of the intervention with the cash in transit industry; robbery from the person, down 23%; and theft from the person, down18%. However, I am not complacent and the overall increase in recorded crime and the increases in particular categories in the most recent figures published are disappointing. I am not down-playing my concerns in that respect.
The Minister did his best.
I welcome, however, the significant decrease of 27% in the number of incidents of robbery of cash and goods in transit, down from 62 in 2004 to 45 in 2005. This trend improved in the fourth quarter, with a decrease of 47%.
Operation Delivery, an initiative undertaken by the Garda Síochána to counteract the increase in cash in transit robberies which emerged in 2004 has contributed significantly to this welcome decrease. The code of practice put in place by the major financial institutions and security companies has dramatically improved the situation. I took a direct hand in bringing about the requisite partnership approach among all those involved in the industry to ensure that decent standards were applied.
Deputy O'Keeffe raised the issue of the number of crimes committed by people on bail. In the 2004 report the Garda Commissioner, for the first time, published the number of offences committed by perpetrators who were on bail. In the term of the rainbow Government the number of prisoners on temporary release reached an all-time high of 20%. It is now 2.3%. That is an important figure.
With regard to the people who have been specified by the Garda Commissioner as having committed offences while on bail, it should be borne in mind that these are gross figures. We do not know, for example, whether they were serious offences on which the perpetrators were out on bail at the time they committed the offence which is dealt with by the Commissioner's report. We are not told that by the figures. We will study the figures to ensure that this issue is dealt with.
A bail Act was passed on foot of a referendum. Under that legislation, gardaí are now entitled to oppose bail for persons who are charged with serious offences on a number of grounds, including the gravity of the offence and the likelihood of bail being abused to commit a separate, serious offence. The gardaí continue to apply to courts in serious cases not to grant bail where they believe, in line with the statutory criteria, further offences are likely to be committed. They are not always successful in those applications.
If the Minister fails to deal with the bail issue separately, and that is his prerogative, I will exercise my prerogative and leave the bail issue aside for separate questions.
It will arise again in Question No. 5.
I am hugely concerned about the bail issue. However, I am also concerned about the crime epidemic. My first concern is that the Minister does not appear to accept that we have an enormous problem with crime. It is difficult to envisage a solution being found until there is an acceptance that there is a problem. The Minister quoted various statistics selectively. Has he forgotten the statistic that in 2000 the figure for headline crimes was 73,000 and the figure for last year was 40% more? There are lies, damned lies and statistics.
Will the Minister accept that there is a huge problem? Will he discuss, reasonably and sensibly, what we can do about it? I believe we must put in place various measures such as adequate numbers of gardaí, proper technology and changes in the criminal law. None of these is in place. We have been given promises, commitments and plans but these do not prevent or help in the detection of crime. We must deal with the situation as it is. Will the Minister accept that we have a problem and that we must bring forward and expedite the promises, commitments and plans or this epidemic will continue?
Of course, I regard crime as serious. However, the phrases used in the questions to which I was replying, that there had been a dramatic increase and that crime was spiralling, are simply not true. Since 2000, the numbers have gone down both in absolute and relative terms. They are significantly down per head of population. I simply made that point.
My second point relates to responses to crime. The number of gardaí has risen dramatically. The Deputies opposite will probably not want to remember that when they were last in office, they allowed the numbers of gardaí to fall. Since the two parties now in Government came into office, there has been a significant increase in the number of gardaí. Numbers have reached 12,200 as planned and will increase to 14,000, in training or fully qualified, by the end of 2006. It is not a matter of promises being made-——
Or of promises being kept.
Recruitment has been increased and proper provisions have been made in Templemore for this. Class sizes vary between 275 and 300 to bring us up to the 14,000 as promised. This will be delivered by the Government.
The Garda Síochána Vote this year increased by 13%, at a time of 3% inflation or less. That is a significant increase in resources. This was on top of an increase last year and the previous year. These increases are unprecedented. On Garda equipment, the force is about to get the digital radio equipment that has long been spoken about. I will deliver that and roll-out of the equipment will start this year. With regard to other equipment such as cars, helicopters and the like, the Garda Síochána has never had as much resources as it now has. This year a sum of €82 million or €83 million has been provided for overtime, a significant increase on anything available previously.
This year's budget for the Garda Síochána is €1.29 billion, a 13% increase this year. The money spent on increasing numbers and providing for equipment, Garda stations and international liaison centres etc. has never been higher. I now want to put in place the Criminal Justice Bill which will give gardaí requisite powers in a number of areas. I look forward to the co-operation of Members in seeing that legislation through.
In 2000 crime figures reached 73,000 and last year they reached 101,000, an increase of 39%. The actual number of gardaí in the force today is what is relevant, not the numbers for next year or the year after and not the number of student gardaí. What counts is the number available today.
Future plans for technology will not affect what is happening today. Is the Minister satisfied with 20 year old walkie talkies? Is he satisfied with a PULSE system which does not operate properly and which costs €1 million per month in consultant's fees to keep it going?
Does the Minister not accept that the Criminal Justice Bill appears to be collapsing under its own weight? We will need a wheelbarrow to bring around the Bill and the amendments from his office — we have only seen the heads of those amendments — and the proposed amendments from the Minister with responsibility for Children. Is there not a case for withdrawing the Bill and dividing it into manageable proportions in order to get the legislation through the Houses quickly? I am concerned that this Dáil will be over before the Bill is in place, judging by the lack of progress.
I will deal with the last point first. If I was to split the Bill into different parts, we would require long Second Stage debates on each part. As the Deputy appreciates, that would guarantee no progress would be made in the lifetime of this Dáil on these important matters.
My comment is made out of concern to see the legislation in place.
There are now more than 12,200 fully attested members of the Garda Síochána. This is a significant increase over the numbers ——
That is just 200 above the 12,000 that was the starting point of the Minister's promise.
Allow the Minister to speak. We are rapidly running out of time and Deputy Costello has yet to speak.
If the Deputy wants to interrupt, let the record show that when Fine Gael and the Labour Party were in Government, they allowed the numbers of gardaí to fall.
That is codology. The Minister made promises, but he did not keep them.
Let it also show that they never delivered reform to the Garda, never put in place measures to deliver a decent radio system——
We still do not have it.
——never provided money for prisons and allowed the revolving door revolve so fast that 20% of prisoners were on temporary release. That is the shameful record of the rainbow coalition on law and order. I will not listen to people making specious comparisons.
The Minister will not listen, full stop and that is his problem.
The number of offences being committed — the Deputy made a comparison with the 2000 figures — is less than when his party was in Government——
The figure is up 40% since 2000.
——in 1995, when we had a much smaller population.
Codology.
Let the figures show that the coalition's record was abject. It was run out of office because it was so poor at handling the issues.
It is no wonder the Minister's record is of a total failure.
That the coalition was thrown out of office in 1997 was a kick in the pants for it. The coalition proved conclusively over a long period that it should not be trusted with the criminal justice system.
That was a poor defence on the part of the Minister.
The Minister for Justice looks something like a punch drunk alcoholic who has at last been persuaded to go to Alcoholics Anonymous and been told that the first thing he must do is recognise his problem.
The Deputy should put a question.
He refuses to recognise his problem. The problem is that while there has been a 3% increase in the overall statistics in 2005, there has been a dramatic increase in the most serious and violent headline crimes. Murder is up by46%. If that is not a dramatic increase, I do not know what is. Rape section 4, serious rape, is up by 33%. Burglary, which is the largest category of all, is up to 26,000 reported burglaries, an increase of 6%. Possession of drugs for supply or sale is up by 20% and possession of firearms is up by 16%. If we add to these figures the number of gangland killings last year, the increase is 250%.
What do we mean by dramatic? The Minister must face reality. What makes matters worse and is even more dramatic is that in the past three months of 2005, overall headline crime increased by 10%. What will happen in 2006? It is time the Minister recognised the reality. If he does not and does not realise he has a problem, he cannot tackle it. The Minister's problem is that he does not even recognise he has a serious problem in headline crime.
The most serious category of all is murder through firearms. The detection and conviction rate for this is abysmal. Only 16% of convictions were for the murders committed over the past five years, an abysmal detection rate. We have the lowest detection and conviction rate for the most serious crime. Criminals realise that they can commit that type of crime with impunity.
The Minister stated that he will take significant steps to deal with the dramatic increase in crime. What are those steps? Operations Crossover and Anvil have not succeeded and we have the figures to show that. They may have succeeded in dealing with other crimes, but not with the dramatic increase outlined by these figures. Operation Anvil operates on the basis of Garda overtime. This means the Minister expects tired gardaí who have already done a day's work to come out again to try to deal with the most serious crime of all, gangland crime. The Minister must build into the Garda plan on an annual basis, outside of overtime, an approach to dealing with headline crimes. Otherwise he will not deal with them at all. If he does not get a grip on reality and face up to what is happening, how can he expect to reassure citizens that he is in charge?
That is just waffle.
It is statistically based.
I have not heard one sensible suggestion from the Labour Party on this question in the time I have been Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform.
I have given the Minister dozens.
The Labour Party opposed increasing garda numbers in the 1997 and 2002 general election campaigns.
The Minister should answer the question.
It did not want an increase.
That is not true. It is a load of rubbish.
That is true. The party did not want an increase and did not make any commitment.
Will the Minister answer the question?
When the Labour Party was last in office, it allowed the number of gardaí to decrease.
The Minister has not increased the number.
It is perfectly reasonable to use overtime resources to finance significant Garda operations.
That is the Minister's only answer.
If the Deputy knew anything about these operations, he would know that when gardaí have to work 12-hour stretches, as they frequently do during surveillance, they must be paid overtime. If they work over and above their usual daily shifts, they must be paid overtime and this is why the additional funds are being put in place.
On the figures the Deputy quoted——
They are the Minister's figures, not mine.
The Deputy is being wilfully blind to the fact that the spate of gangland killings has abated. He knows very well that this is the case but is pretending it is not. Can he point out such offences that have taken place in the past month or two? They have not occurred because the Garda is getting on top of the issue.
In 2005, there were 19 gangland killings, according to the Minister's figures.
The Deputy should not shout me down. There is no point having questions if he does so.
The Minister should face reality.
The Minister to reply.
The Deputy forgets that——
If the Minister does not face reality, how will he solve the problem?
——he throws against the Garda the fact that drugs seizures have increased. Does he want the Garda to do its job or not? He throws against the Garda the fact that it has seized more firearms, thereby suggesting circumstances have worsened.
I throw it against the Minister.
It is a case of the Garda doing its job. If there were no increases in drugs seizures or charges for possession of firearms, we would then have a problem because it would be clear that policing was not working.
I have a brief supplementary question. The Minister is saying that if we had fewer gardaí on the beat, there would be fewer drugs seized——
That is true.
——and that there would therefore be a lower incidence of crime.
That is true.
That is wonderful and the reason we are not getting the 2,000 extra gardaí. It remains the case that the Minister has not faced up to the serious crime problem, whether it involves murder, gangland killings, anti-social behaviour or drugs. Drug trafficking is one of the most serious issues and is now out of hand.
A question has been tabled on cocaine. We saw in a recent survey that cocaine use is now so ingrained in Irish society that the Garda is finding it extremely difficult to target the problem. This happened under the Minister's watch because cocaine was not readily available in the country when he became Minister. Since he took office, cocaine has spread to every town in Ireland.
In the Deputy's day, heroin was the big problem.
Heroin still presents a serious problem in Dublin. Some 85% of all heroin seizures are in Dublin and the problem has not really spread outside the Dublin area. However, cocaine has spread to every part of the country under the Minister's watch. He is doing nothing about it. Crimes associated with cocaine, including crack cocaine, are becoming the most serious of all crimes and I have not seen any proposal by the Minister to deal with the problem. Perhaps he will tell us today on the floor of the House what he intends to do about this threat.
I will ignore the general situation for the moment. The Minister seems to be in denial about crime in general.
Total denial.
Let me talk about bail, which concerns me greatly. I want the Minister to at least listen to what I have to say. I was horrified by the recent statistic that 15 of the people who died in violent circumstances last year were alleged to have been killed by people on bail. Urgent action is necessary on this front. We need a tougher approach to bail. Has the Minister proposals in this regard, either by way of changing the law such that previous convictions would have to be taken into account by a judge before deciding on a bail application or by way of some change in presumptions regarding people with previous convictions for violent crime?
As the Deputy knows, the Bail Act has been enacted. All the aforementioned criteria are relied upon regularly by the Garda. Whether the Judiciary feels the applications by the Garda to withhold bail are correct is a matter for it to decide. I share the Deputy's apprehension that the bail referendum and Bail Act introduced on foot thereof do not seem to have a reforming effect on circumstances in which serious evidence given by serious gardaí in court is sometimes overruled or set aside. Bail is sometimes granted in the teeth of serious opposition by members of the Garda.
Can we toughen the law? That is my concern.
If the Deputy examines the Bail Act, he will see that all the criteria he has just mentioned are set out therein.
On a discretionary basis.
If the Deputy is suggesting there is a mandatory requirement to withhold bail in certain circumstances——
It is just one possibility.
I will consider that proposal but cannot be sure it would find favour with the majority of people.
On Deputy Costello's point on cocaine, Deputy Gregory has tabled a question on the matter and I believe an attempt is being made to elbow in in front of him on the issue. Huge amounts of cocaine have been seized and these seizures influence the figures on which Deputy Costello is relying to point out that the issue is not being dealt with. He keeps asking whether I accept that crime is serious. Of course I do — I am serious about my job.
I am delighted to hear that. That is the first admission we have heard today and it is about time we heard it.
Order, please.
I have never heard one suggestion from Deputy Costello——
He might say it more often.
——that would improve the fight against crime.
Has the Minister not read any of the documents I produced?
Every measure I have introduced to deal with the fight against crime has been resolutely opposed by him.
He is totally blind to it.
He is a dog who barks all the time but never comes up with the goods.
