Plans for a €15 million refurbishment of the Department of Justice were criticised by the Fine Gael leader, Mr Enda Kenny.
"This is being done at a time when school buildings fall down on the heads of children and when so many other priorities need to be dealt with around the country," he said.
Mr Kenny added that law and order and public order on the streets were critical issues on people's minds. "Your Government, Taoiseach, reneged on a solemn promise made to the Irish people that 2,000 extra gardaí would be recruited," he added. "The Minister for Justice recently stated in a television programme that no money existed within his department to deal with this promise. This is a time when public order offences have tripled to 117 per day." He challenged the Taoiseach to explain why the Government was giving greater priority to refurbishing the offices of the Minister for Justice than to the reallocation of the €15 million which would pay the salaries of 725 new gardaí.
Mr Ahern said the Minister for Justice had outlined his plans on the recruitment of gardaí to the House on a number of occasions. The Minister would try to increase the number of gardaí by 2,000 in the Government's lifetime, and, in the meantime, to maximise the resources in the training college in Templemore to ensure that the number was maintained at 12,200, he added.
On violent crime, Mr Ahern said that the introduction of tough measures, as well as the division of the Garda into specialised groups, were among the measures taken to deal with the issue. "Far from ignoring crime, the Minister has, with substantial resources and numbers of people, is endeavouring to deal with the matter," he added.
Mr Kenny said the money for the refurbishment of the Department came from the public purse. "The fact is that priority has been given by the Department of Finance, which has responsibility for the Office of Public Works (OPW) to allocate €15 million for the refurbishment of ministerial offices over and above the priority accorded to the recruitment of new gardaí to keep law and order on our streets," he said. "If Templemore is not capable of producing more recruits, then surely there are other facilities which can be used for the temporary training of gardaí," Mr Kenny said.
Mr Ahern said the Government was committed to increasing the number of gardaí as resources permitted. He added that the last quarterly figures for crime showed a drop of almost 10 per cent. "That is not here nor there. As long as there is any crime, we should be trying to deal with the issue," he added.
