Fianna Fáil has said it will bring the strength of An Garda Síochána to 15,000 and review sentences for serious crimes if it is in government after the election.
Niall Collins, the party's justice spokesman, on Sunday outlined some justice and security elements of the party's manifesto outside the former Garda station in Whitehall, Dublin, yards from Friday's fatal shooting at the Regency Hotel.
The old Garda station is currently being renovated to house the State Pathologist and the Dublin City Coroner.
Mr Collins said Fianna Fáil would ask the Garda Inspectorate to review all stations that have been closed in recent years but did not commit to reopening any of them.
Sentencing council
Mr Collins also called for a sentencing council to “bring about uniformity and consistency of sentencing”.
Such a council would be part of the Courts Service and would comprise a majority of judges. Mr Collins said he was holding the press conference near the Regency Hotel to “stand in solidarity” with the local community.
“It is a damaging indictment of the Government’s failed policy and their inertia in dealing with crime that they have allowed the numbers of An Garda Síochána to dwindle to almost 12,000,” Mr Collins said.
“They have also closed Garda stations and left communities, like this community here, unpoliced. The incidents that happened down the road were so shocking.”
Fianna Fáil would extend the retirement age for members of the force if elected, and is partly in favour of recent recommendations from the Garda Inspectorate to reallocate 1,000 middle management gardaí to frontline policing.
However, Mr Collins claimed the figure of 1,000 is “ambitious”. He claimed the Garda response time to last week’s shooting was inadequate because of a lack of resources.
Organised crime
He also called for the establishment of a dedicated unit to tackle organised crime. "These peoples aren't just involved in drugs. They are involved in other forms of criminality, counterfeit goods, people-trafficking, and their tentacles reach across the globe into other parts of Europe. "
Mr Collins, a Limerick TD, also accused the Labour Party of opposing previous measures to strengthen criminal justice "under the banner of civil liberties".
He said Sinn Féin wants to abolish the Special Criminal Court, when it was needed in order to tackle organised crime.
“We need to see the Special Criminal Court in action today to deal with the problem of gangland criminality in Dublin.
“It is simply not good enough for a party that espouses to be [sic] a mainstream political party like Sinn Féin can stand with any degree of credibility and say it wants to abolish the Special Criminal Court. I think people are disgusted by that.”
