NEW CSO FIGURES HIGHLIGHT FAILURE OF FIANNA FAIL/PD GOV ON CRIME
Wednesday, 25 April, 2007
New CSO crime statistics for the first quarter of this year, published today, show the worrying extent of the continuing crime problem in Ireland and the utter failure of the Fianna Fail/PD to deliver on its promises to make our streets and our communities safer.
These figures show that despite all the promises of Michael McDowell the Irish public is subjected to almost 2,000 headline offences per week or close to 300 per day.
While the small decrease in the overall level of headline crime in this quarter is welcome, the increase in a range of specific offences such as abductions, arson and robberies targeting individuals is particularly worrying. Nowhere has the obvious failure of government been greater than in the area of drugs. All offences in the drugs category show an increase in the first quarter of 2007 and in the twelve month period.
The drugs situation is now worse than ever. Communities are being blighted by the problem while criminal gangs are making vast profits from their deadly business. The drug business is fuelling the broader crime situation, with the huge profits to be made providing the criminal gangs with a treasury to buy deadly weapons and branch out into other areas of crime.
Existing policing procedures are simply not working satisfactorily. If we are to significantly reduce crime levels, we need a change of approach. We need a far more visible Garda presence on the ground. We need to reconnect the Gardai with local communities and ensure that they work together to combat crime and anti-social behaviour.
The previous Minister for Justice, John O’Donoghue said that the test of his term in office would be whether or not, at the end of it, people felt safer in their homes and communities. Certainly at the end of ten years of Fianna Fail/PD government there would be very few people in this country who feel safer than they did in 1997.
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