Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

Recently we saw a number of very successful operations carried out by the Garda to deal with gangland crime. I acknowledge the considerable efforts of the Garda in this regard and I commend it on its successes which clearly prevented further murders and serious crimes.

We have had two murders in recent days and we had a number of murders last year also but there was a significant decrease on the previous year. It is the type of activity that the Garda is involved in that is preventing more murders, under Operation Anvil in particular, which deals with these gangs. We deplore the killings of the two men on Thursday and Saturday. Every time there is a murder of any kind we deplore it, such as the murders in Drimnagh of the two Polish citizens the previous week.

Recent CSO figures indicate there were 84 homicides, 78 murders and six manslaughters here last year. While that was an increase of 25% in total numbers over 2006 the gang-related killings do not account for that. Killings under that heading are completely unacceptable but the murder rate is something the Garda has to keep on tackling. According to Garda records, most of the murders last year were of a domestic nature and related to different events with drugs and alcohol being the key components. Prosecutions for these crimes is almost 100%. In gangland crime it is not good.

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