Taoiseach rejects FG claim of crime rate increases

Fine Gael claims that serious assaults have almost trebled while detection rates have plummeted were described as a lie in the Dáil yesterday by the Taoiseach.

Bertie Ahern rejected the figures which Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said the party had received from the Department of Justice.

The statistics showed that headline offences in Dublin had risen by 8,700 or 23 per cent since 2000, while serious assaults had almost trebled, from 12 a week in 2000 to 33 a week now. Crime was up in 17 out of 18 Dublin districts. "It is not zero tolerance we have but zero performance," the Fine Gael leader said.

But during heated exchanges and Opposition heckling, Mr Ahern said headline crime rates had dropped by 4 per cent last year compared to 2003 and by 14 per cent overall. Pointing out that these were the Department of Justice figures, he said: "Perhaps somebody else is doing a separate set of statistics, but these are the official figures. The latest figures expose the lie from the Opposition benches that crime rates have increased. They have not."

Naming Blanchardstown, Coolock and Tallaght as the areas where most of these crimes were taking place, Mr Kenny said they accounted for 50 per cent of total crime in Dublin. In addition, Bray and Terenure Garda districts had detection rates of less than one in five for serious crime. He added that some 40 minor assaults a week are recorded. Detection rates had fallen sharply, down seven points to 32 per cent in 2004 and consequently 4,200 fewer serious crimes were now being solved.

Calling for a restructuring of Garda manpower to deal with these incidents, Mr Kenny said: "We have had much bombast, words, waffle and gung-ho from the absent Minister for Justice, concerning how these matters are being dealt with while asserting that criminality, gangland warfare and the rest of it is the sting of a dying wasp." The figures show that to be a "complete and utter contradiction", he said.

"You might apply zero tolerance to the man who's Minister," interjected Padraic McCormack (FG, Galway West).

When Mr Ahern said Mr Kenny was giving a list of statistics not compatible with the overall figures for the last few years, Fine Gael's Justice spokesman, Jim O'Keeffe, retorted: "That is not true. They are up 35 per cent since 2000." Released to the party's deputy leader, Richard Bruton, in a parliamentary reply, the statistics also showed that plummeting detection rates were four-fifths of what they were in 2000, Mr Kenny said.

Mr Ahern, however, defended the role of the Garda and said there were additional resources and gardaí particularly in areas such as Blanchardstown, where there had been a "particularly difficult crime situation over the last few years".

He said gardaí, using all their specialist resources had "gone in to break some of the crime gangs in those areas and had considerable success in the detection and prosecution of criminals and in terms of the numbers of guns recovered and drug seizures".

Mr Ahern said the population had increased from 3.6 million to 4.04 million but headline crime was down 14 per cent and Mr Kenny "cannot come into the House and give figures for the overall position that shows that crime levels are up when the overall figures are down".

He added: "We have far more prison places now than we had previously and they are all full. Detection rates cannot be down when that is the case."