The record reductions in crime that have been achieved in recent years will be seriously eroded if the Labour Party is returned to Government, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, John O’Donoghue, said today.
"The Labour Party’s sudden awakening to the crime issue has much to do the advent of the General Election and does not sit easily with its abysmal record of bringing the perpetrators of crime to justice," he said.
Speaking at the Annual Delegate Conference of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors today, Mr O’Donoghue said that people should not be fooled into believing that Labour is capable of tackling the crime issue. "This is the Party whose hallmark in Government was a revolving prison door system which was in full swing with 25 per cent of the prison population on temporary release due to a lack of prison spaces," he said.
Mr O’Donoghue also said that Labour played "a star role in ensuring that 1996 went down as Year of the Criminal" when the number of indictable offences were the highest in the history of the State at 102,000.
"Rather than telling us what we already know, Ruairí Quinn should explain his complete lack of concern when Labour in Government decided to cancel the prison building programme, failed to properly resource the Gardaí, and failed the forces of law and order with an inadequate programme of legislation," he said.
The Minister said that Fianna Fáil will not rest on its laurels of reducing the number of indictable offences from 102,000 to 77,000 today. "We have cut crime by 27 per cent to its lowest level in 20 years. I’m proud that this decrease is the largest in the world in the last five years – a fact which is recognised in the annual Garda Report," he said.
Mr O’Donoghue said that efforts would now be focused on cracking down on street violence and late night disturbances through the introduction of legislation which will give powers to courts to close bars, discos and fast-food premises creating public order problems, and through the introduction by the Garda Commissioner of Operation Encounter.
