Rural Ireland is a playground for criminal gangs because the consequences are not strong enough, according to a Renua Ireland candidate.

Offaly candidate John Leahy said criminals make the same "business risk assessment" as entrepreneurs.

“They assess the risk and the consequences of that risk are not strong enough,” he said as Renua pushed for the introduction of minimum statutory sentences for murder and a “three strikes and you’re out” policy for repeat offenders.

Mr Leahy, the party’s main rural policy strategist said a life sentence should mean life.

“In Ireland the current average life sentence is 20 years. We recommend a minimum term for all offenders particularly repeat offenders,” he said.

At a policy launch on rural crime outside the Department of Agriculture on Saturday he said it had been proven internationally that “if you’re tough on crime there is less crime” and there would be less crime if the risk was greater.

“Thugs and gangsters have made a playground of rural Ireland,” he said.

“Virtual terror has been imposed on people particularly in rural counties . . . [and] I I don’t think there is confidence in the judicial system at the moment.”

He said “our culture, our lifestyle has been taken away from us. We no longer can leave our key in the back door.”

Mr Leahy said the party wanted a “zero tolerance approach when it comes to crime”, to deal with the vacuum that had been created for skilled and mobile criminal gangs.

Renua leader Lucinda Creighton said that what the party was talking about in mandatory life sentences "is the norm in every other common law jurisdiction in the world".

She said the Law Reform Commission recommended in 2013 on sentencing reform that judges would have the capacity to hand down a minimum sentence before which parole would not be considered.

Latest polls

She also welcomed Renua's performance in the latest polls. The Sunday Business Post/Red C poll had the party on 3 per cent, level with the Social Democrats, while a Sunday Times Behaviour & Attitudes poll had the party on 4 per cent, again level with the Social Democrats.

Ms Creighton said she had to take the polls with a pinch of salt especially when the margin of error was 3 per cent.

But she said the polls had given Renua a bit of momentum, especially since the RTÉ leaders' debate and "the reaction on the doors had been good".

The party has 26 candidates running and a target of winning 10 seats.

“I think we have some surprise in store for all the commentators and media who are observing these things,” she added.

Asked if the party would continue to exist if the results were disappointing, Ms Creighton said they had councillors around the State and a party organisation in 35 constituencies.

“We’re not going anywhere,” she insisted. “Despite what some people may hope for we’re not going away.”