Fine Gael has promised to co-operate with the Government in tackling the "national emergency" over crime as Opposition parties lined up yesterday to excoriate the Government over the latest crime figures.
The party's justice spokesman, Mr John Deasy, said last night that the situation was "so horrific that it needs political co-operation. We need to accept that policies have failed, that potential criminals do not believe they will be punished and that many people have stopped reporting crimes."
He said he would not play "the blame game" and his party was willing to work with the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, to make crime a priority.
"The health of the police force is questionable; the state of the Garda Síochána is disimproving; and people are losing faith in the process of justice as a whole. There is no point in the Minister expressing grave concern every year.
"We need to recognise that policies haven't worked and won't work unless criminals realise the law will be operated and they will be punished severely for their actions."
Sentences must be increased, the law prosecuted relentlessly and adequate resources provided to law enforcement agencies.
Labour's justice spokesman, Mr Joe Costello, said the figures were "horrific" and pointed to a serious breakdown of law and order in the country. They were "a truly shocking indictment of the record of the Fianna Fáil/PD Government".
The increase came on top of significant rises in the previous two years, he said. "We now have a situation where there will be almost 300 serious offences committed in this country today and on every other day of the year. "People, and especially young people, are now more at risk of violent assault than at any other time in the history of the state. Despite this, the Criminal Justice (Public Order) Bill, published over a year ago, has still not been enacted."
He condemned the Government for failing to recruit the 2,000 extra gardaí it promised during last year's election campaign. "The Fianna Fáil/PD administration has been in power now for almost seven years. Unlike any previous administration over the past 30 years they have been freed of the need to deploy major policing resources to the situation arising from the North.
"Despite this and despite their lavish promises of zero tolerance of crime, they have instead presided over an unprecedented descent into violence and thuggery."
Sinn Féin's spokesman, Mr Aengus Ó Snodaigh, maintained, however, that the figures "tell us nothing. . .On an initial reading it would appear that crime has rocketed in the last two years with a rise of 22.2 per cent being quoted. But when you read on, we find that the actual crime rate in relation to the population has only increased by a fraction of one per cent [since 1996] when the growth of the population has been taken into account."
The figures would unnecessarily add to the "already exaggerated fear that crime is somehow out of control. . .I believe it is scaremongering at its worst and also believe that the figures are being cynically used to pursue a specific ideological agenda."
For the Green Party, Mr Ciaran Cuffe accused Mr McDowell and the Government of a "grave dereliction of duty" as a result of the figures. "The massive increase in crime figures makes for alarming reading," he said.
The Government "has singularly failed in their duty to protect the public against this rising tide of crime," he said.
Mr McDowell's Garda recruitment embargo had been a "penny wise and pound foolish" move which had left the public seriously exposed, Mr Cuffe said.
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