Senator Bacik speaking on Gangland Crime

Statments.

Senator Ivana Bacik: I thank Senator Norris for sharing his time with me and I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I echo the words of Senator Norris in expressing sincere sympathy for the families of Roy Collins and, before that, Shane Geoghegan. Those two people in particular have in recent months come to symbolise the real problem that so many communities, not just in Limerick but around Ireland, particularly in inner-city areas, face with so-called gangland crime.

With regard to the language, the term “gangland crime” is an unfortunate term and, like the term “joyriding”, it does not get across the serious, very sordid and damaging nature of this crime to communities. It is a somewhat sensationalising word to use which has echoes of the streets of Chicago in the 1920s and so on. It is perhaps better to speak of organised crime rather than gangland crime. That is not strictly accurate either because the term comes from the US and a criminal context where there are very organised so-called street gangs. In Ireland we see a different sort of structure within the organised crime world, with some examples based on family allegiance and others based on commercial ties, drug running etc.

We must be conscious in any debate like this that the majority of crime is not of an organised nature; most crime is committed in a much less organised way. As the Garda has indicated on many occasions, a great deal of crime, particularly inner-city crime against property, is committed by people addicted to heroin. There are very different methods to tackle that sort of crime. I am glad to say that for some time the official policy has been to encourage more people who are addicted to heroin on to methadone maintenance programmes and there has also been a pilot drug court, which has been a good initiative showing great potential. Will the Minister of State give a commitment to rolling out the drug court further as this is an obvious way of trying to remove from the system a large core of people who will become persistent offenders?

Research has been done to show that the drops in property crime throughout the 1990s could be linked to an increased Government commitment to putting funding into methadone maintenance programmes and we must be conscious of different methods used to tackle forms of crime other than the so-called gangland or organised crime.

There is a particular problem for the Garda in prosecuting gangland crime with regard to gathering information, evidence and having witnesses willing and able to come forward. We should all pay tribute to the very brave individuals who have come forward over the years and enabled prosecutions to be taken against persons engaged in organised crime. As gangland crime is organised, there is potential to organise intimidation of witnesses and jurors, although we have not seen that in Ireland. We have seen serious and worrying cases of witness intimidation and that is where our legislative response must keep its focus.

I welcome two initiatives in particular, including that which allows statements of witnesses to be used in court as evidence even where the witness has been intimidated or is no longer able to come into court to give evidence in person. Subject to safeguards, particularly where the evidence is videotaped, it is a welcome change to the rule of evidence. I also welcome the Criminal Justice (Surveillance) Bill 2009 which is on Second Stage in the other House, given that all of us, particularly those of us working in the courts, know that the Garda already operates surveillance measures and uses covert methods to gain information. Anybody who has been in criminal courts will be aware of the formula gardai use where, on the basis of confidential information available to them, they went to a certain house and arrested a certain suspect. We know such information is obtained through covert surveillance and gardaı may not want to reveal how information was obtained in all cases. It would be useful and important that where judicial authorisation is obtained, such information may now become admissible evidence in courts. I stress the need for safeguards and to ensure that the constitutional rights of privacy and inviolability of the dwelling are protected. We have seen a large body of case law built up over the years on search warrants and the courts have held a line against undue encroachments on those rights, which is important.

We cannot lose sight of other means which have been adopted to try to tackle organised crime where it has been a specific feature of specific communities. It is important to welcome the regeneration project in Limerick, which I hope will bear fruit. That is a more long-term prospect. I also welcome changes in community policing and ask the Minister to guarantee that it will be one of our priorities. A Minister of State gave a speech earlier in which he spoke about increased Garda numbers but I saw nothing in the contribution about an increased commitment to community policing. To build trust in communities, community policing is the best way forward.

Some measures have already been introduced through the Criminal Justice Acts 2006 and 2007 and there are some proposals for the future apart from the electronic surveillance Bill. In the raft of legislation introduced in 2006 and 2007 we have seen sweeping new measures such as mandatory minimum sentences for firearms offences, on top of those which have been passed for drugs offences, new definitions around organised crime and new offences in Part 7 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006 where persons commit offences for the benefit of or in association with a criminal organisation.

Everyone acknowledges that the definition of criminal organisation is problematic. It is different to the organisation which is at issue in the Special Criminal Court where we have scheduled offences under the Offences Against the State Act. By their nature, these organisations are much less clearly defined so I urge caution on that.

I welcome the proposed DNA database, which is long overdue. The Minister will be aware of the Marper decision in the European Court of Human Rights which requires that DNA databases operate within particular parameters and that they cannot be too widely drawn or they will breach civil liberties. I generally welcome proposals to deal with the matter but warn against the widening of nets. With any measures introduced to deal with organised crime, the danger is that they will spill over to the ordinary and opportunistic crime and thereby encroach unduly on civil liberty.