Should we perpetrate the revolving door syndrome? What are the implications of restricting access to bail? Would prisons be emptied again to cater for those who may or may not be guilty? We must look at this problem. Given the pressure on prison space — an issue with which we are all familiar — we must be sure any changes in bail laws do not lead to the more frequent early release of offenders. As politicians representing taxpayers, we should be conscious of the cost of keeping people in custody — approximately £600 per week. That is a lot of money to extract from the PAYE sector in particular, which carries the heaviest tax burden.
As well as reviewing our approach to bail, we must look at the long delays between the initial charging of offenders and their subsequent trial. In some cases this may take up to two years or more. That is unsatisfactory, although this process is not as long here as in other countries. In France, for example, there is a long delay between the time of arrest and incarceration and when one appears before the Judiciary. However, it is unacceptable for the victim or the perpetrator of the crime to wait two years or more. The X case happened some time ago — I did not check the record to see how long — but only recently came before the courts.
Measures must be taken to reduce long delays. Additional judges should be appointed. This would help break the cycle. Extra resources should be allocated to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and the criminal legal aid system. Additional courtrooms should also be built. The delay between charging a person and their trial should be reduced to a number of months.
Steps should be taken to stop offenders using procedural tactics to secure delays. It is sad that the more hardened, successful and professional the criminal the better the legal advice he has access to. The cycle where the criminal uses the best brains in the business to use procedures to delay their appearance in court must be looked at.
In my constituency a young man was knifed to death. We must do something for those who have been mugged, physically assaulted or whose homes have been broken into. Although arrests are made and people appear in court, they are back on the streets — particularly in working class areas — often taunting their victims. The victim fails to understand what is happening in the judicial system when someone who has committed a major crime, including murder, manslaughter, a break-in or an assault, is back on the streets so quickly. This is demoralising for victims.
Section 11 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1984, provides for the imposition of successive sentencing for offences committed while on bail and for stiff penalties for the person who fails to turn up for trial when on bail. These powers are rarely used. Perhaps the Minister could tell us why certain provisions in the legislation are not being imposed. The area of bail needs to be looked at and the measures in this Bill are worthy of careful consideration. It is wrong to consider the right to bail as the solution to our crime problems. Other countries which have more restrictive laws on bail, have more serious crime problems than this country.
Apart from unemployment, there is little doubt that the biggest social problems in urban areas are crime and vandalism which subject communities to intolerable terror. That is the reason we support this Bill. As the Minister knows, this is a common problem in many areas, particularly in Dublin. Statistics show that almost half of all reported crimes occur in Dublin where less than 30 per cent of the population live. It is now more common for people not to report crime, particularly muggings, handbag snatches and car break-ins. Because people do not bother to report such crimes, the crime levels are substantially higher than the official statistics show.
The Garda's response is terrible at times. Perhaps some gardaí should do a PR course. This is not a direct attack on the Garda, but if a house is broken into, it seems to take an eternity for the fingerprint detectives to arrive. People often feel that a serious effort is not being made to chase the criminal responsible for breaking into their homes. There is a lack of feedback from the Garda about the progress being made. This matter should be addressed, people should be reassured that the Garda are pursuing the criminals. For example, my daughter's bicycle was stolen outside a shopping centre and she reported it to the Garda Síochána. She was told the bicycle would be on the boat to England in a couple of days. This is a negative attitude. If the Garda is there to catch criminals, it should try to catch them instead of dismissing the crime as one which cannot be solved.
The level of reported crime in the Dublin metropolitan area is seven times higher than in some rural Garda divisions. However, what is of greater concern is the poor level of detection in the capital. This is disturbing. The detection rate in three of the four Garda divisions is less than 30 per cent compared to more than 50 per cent in some rural areas. Crime pays because 70 per cent of crimes go undetected. That is an incredible indictment of the present system. This means that if one lives in Dublin one is more likely to be a victim of crime and the criminal is less likely to be brought to justice.
The small minority involved in crime are making life a misery for the majority of honest law abiding citizens. The muggers and assailants have made the simple pleasure of a walk through the city centre at night a thing of the past for all but the bravest. People will not go into certain areas of the city now. For example, glue sniffing, drug abuse and vandalism can now be seen in our public parks. Many public parks have removed the amenities and facilities for children because of vandalism in the children's play centres.
The sense of community in many working class areas is being eroded as families become prisoners in their homes due to the activities of teenage gangs. Everyone knows, particularly politicians who knock on doors looking for votes or who try to communicate with the electorate outside election times, that once dusk falls it is difficult to get a response to a knock on a door. Locks, grills and burglar alarms are now a common sight; at one time it was the key in the door. I grew up in Harold's Cross where we lived in great poverty. However, there were few robberies. Not only was the key left in the door but the door was left open and neighbours could walk in. We exchanged milk, sugar and other necessities and if the door had to be shut, everyone knew the key could be got by putting a hand through the letterbox because the key was on a string. It is sad that doors are now fitted with Chubb locks, emergency lighting and burglar alarms. That is how Irish society has developed.
I want to emphasise the difficulties for the elderly, particularly in Dublin city. Elderly people are living in fear because they are vulnerable to attack by muggers and during break-ins. Anyone who has an elderly relative will know it only takes one mugging or one break-in to destroy their quality of life. I represent a constituency which has a large number of elderly people; it probably has the largest concentration of senior citizen accommodation. The houses in Crumlin, Walkinstown and Drimnagh were built in the 1940s and many elderly people still live there. It is sad to see people living out their last days in fear of leaving their homes or of opening the door to whoever may knock. This situation cannot be allowed to continue. The right to live in peace, free from the threat of attack, should be a basic right of everyone in society yet, it is one which many people do not enjoy.
There is no single solution to crime. Nobody, least of all the Progressive Democrats, Democratic Left or Fianna Fáil, has a magic wand. There is no instant or quick solution to this problem. Crime has its origins in economic, social and environmental conditions. It is no coincidence that the areas with the highest levels of crime are also those with the highest levels of poverty, the lowest levels of employment and the poorest housing and environmental conditions. The unfair distribution of income and work and the resources which are still a feature of Irish society must be tackled if a long term solution to crime is to be found. It is unacceptable to say to an old age pensioner who is being terrorised nightly that they must wait until the politicians solve the unemployment problem in order to be free from the scourge of crime. These people cannot wait. They require the Government of the day to put the resources into developing the type of society which would reduce the crime statistics.
Any theories about solving the crime problem require the dual approach of tackling the social and economic conditions, which contribute to crime, and improving policing methods and judicial procedures to give immediate relief to those under threat. There is a need for a substantial increase in the number of gardaí on the ground in the areas worst affected. Prison sentences must not only offer an opportunity for rehabilitation, but they must be a deterrent to crime. It is not good enough to release juvenile offenders because there are no suitable places of detention. While early release, in some cases, is a worthwhile element in the rehabilitation process, releasing offenders who have served only a small part of their sentence to make way for other offenders who may need to be released to make way for more offenders, makes a joke of the judicial system.
The juvenile liaison officer scheme has been an outstanding and successful Garda initiative in recent years. It seeks to identify first time offenders and, rather than subject them to court and a possible prison sentence, it deals with them through formal caution and supervision. Those of us who are in contact with youth leaders, youth clubs and community activists, indeed, everyone who is involved with young, vulnerable people involved in crime regard it as an outstanding success. Yet, sadly, it is seriously underfunded and underresourced. More than 45 per cent of all those convicted of crime during 1992 were under 21 years of age, yet less than 1 per cent of Garda personnel are operating as juvenile liaison officers and the Minister should look at that.
Above all, the battle against crime requires the fullest possible co-operation between the public and the Garda. The extent of co-operation at present varies from area to area and can often depend on the attitude of senior officers in particular districts. There is a need for more formal structures to facilitate the co-operation needed to counter current levels of crime. I would like to see the establishment of local liaison committees made up of the Garda Síochána, local public representatives and nominees of community, resident and youth organisations. The committee would not have any say in the day to day running of the Garda but would be a source of advice and a forum for consultation between the police and the public.
I would record my deep appreciation to the Garda Commissioner. As a member of Dublin Corporation I proposed the establishment of a task force for a particularly problematic inner city community. I will not mention its exact location. After years of political experience and lobbying by residents for more police and better estate management by Dublin Corporation and lobbying for better services for drug abusers and addicts, I brought about a task force for this part of the south inner city of Dublin. It comprises members of Dublin Corporation's community development section, which has a key role to play, and its housing administration section. The task force also comprises the local director of community care for the Eastern Health Board and the residents' association of the area, it has permanent representation from the Garda drug squad and the local Garda based in Kilmainham.
The beauty of this task force is that everybody plays a key task role in addressing in particular, the problems of drug abuse, the bad environment and the way in which the social norms were breaking down, and in trying to rebuild a community base. I wish to record my appreciation to the Garda Commissioner, who releases to the task force each month the services of the drug squad and the local Garda in Kilmainham. I want to thank the city manager, who releases two and often three of his personnel for the monthly meetings. I also want to thank the chief executive officer of the Eastern Health Board, who also releases personnel who have busy schedules and could be otherwise occupied. They put their time and effort into our collective effort to try to resolve a particular problem in a part of the city.
I was at one of the task force meetings today and the lack of detoxification places and satellite clinics, the lack of access to methadone substitution for heroin and hard drugs and the lack of rehabilitation programmes to cover those drug abusers who wish to be rehabilitated is an outrage. Due to the lack of resources from the Minister for Health and the Minister for Justice hundreds of people in urban Dublin each week are being mugged, have handbags snatched and are physically injured in attacks, hospitalised and have their money and goods stolen. Some of these people will, sadly, die; elderly people are particularly vulnerable. Once they have been mugged or broken into the quality of their lives is destroyed.
I am so critical of the Government for the lack of detoxification places, satellite clinics, methadone substitution and rehabilitation programmes for drug addicts because there are about 5,000 to 7,000 drug abusers in this city. Each drug abuser who is addicted robs a minimum of £40 per day for his or her fix. Many drug abusers rob three times that amount, £120 per day, because they need three fixes to keep their high. Multiplying the 5,000 to 7,000 drug abusers by the £40 to £120 for their fixes shows clearly that hundreds of thousands of pounds, possibly millions over the years, is stolen in handbag snatches and break-ins. In many cases these drug abusers are on long waiting lists as they cannot get onto programmes. A drug abuser who wants to kick the habit cannot get into the miserable ten beds in Beaumont Hospital for detoxification — there is a huge waiting list.
The Minister should accept this Bill and accept that the crime levels in Dublin could be cut by bringing the proper services into being to facilitate the drug abuser who wants to kick the habit. By providing the services — the methadone substitution, the satellite clinics and the detoxification units — the crime levels in Dublin could be cut overnight. Would the Minister address the issue as to why we are unnecessarily penalising people whose lives will be ruined tonight by a drug addict who robs or mugs them, a drug addict who is one of the hundreds turned away from programes due to a lack of places? These addicts are pressurised by their families and their communities to kick their habit. They go to various satellite clinics and hospitals for detoxification. They try all of the agencies from the Eastern Health Board to the Department of Health and they are turned away. The Minister has a lot to answer for in this regard.
