Máire Geoghegan-Quinn was right about that much. The Taoiseach will probably be aware that the Minister of State at the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy Brian Lenihan, launched a report yesterday on the childhood development initiative. The report deals in great detail with the impact on children as young as ten of anti-social behaviour.

If the Taoiseach has not seen the report, I recommend it to him, because when I raised the question of anti-social behaviour with him last week, I was completely bemused by his reply, as were people outside the House. If the Taoiseach had received as big a response to the issue as I have, he would know the extent of the breakdown of the fabric of society in many communities. Instead, he wandered, making a number of different claims. He said we have 14,000 gardaí but, according to a reply to a parliamentary question by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, we have 12,200. The Taoiseach then detailed at great length his struggle to implement the Criminal Justice Act but that was introduced by a Fine Gael-Labour Government.

He then talked about community policing and instanced his struggle in this regard, stating:

I recall what the Opposition said when two years ago a community garda in this city stood up to deal with the unfair elements. I answered in this House for that garda who tried to clear out a few hooligans and vandals from the May Day celebrations. I was trying to defend the poor man. The Labour Party talks about community gardaí but gives no support to community policing.

The Taoiseach made a most unfortunate choice. That particular garda and the events of May Day are something that ought not to be celebrated or defended in this House. There is no single, simple solution to this phenomenon that threatens the fabric of society in many communities and neighbourhoods but community policing is one of the solutions. The resources devoted to community policing are entirely inadequate and inconsistent.

They are non-existent.

The Taoiseach is well aware that, for example, initiatives such as the JLO scheme have as many gardaí devoted to them as the Garda driving pool. The resources are not put into the measures that could address this issue in society. Unfortunate people are being tortured in their own communities because of the actions of young thugs and hooligans who are out of control, with no parental responsibility. The Taoiseach's answer the last day sought to trivialise rather than deal with a serious social issue.

I do not know why the Deputy takes an account of something I did not say last week. I did not in any way trivialise it. I said the Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill 2005, which the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform is bringing in, is a serious Bill and I asked Members to support it. It contains strong measures and criminologists and others have stated the Bill is too tough. The Bill's provisions will address the point made by the Deputy. It will strengthen the investigative powers of the Garda. We are recruiting to get up to 14,000 gardaí.

That is a correction.

The legislation will deal with powers of arrest, search and detention powers, powers to fingerprint and to take DNA samples. The Minister has stated he will introduce additional provisions on Committee Stage to address other issues relating to criminal gangs, the control of firearms, curfew orders and powers to place civil orders on individuals whom, as Deputy Rabbitte rightly said, act out of order in society. We have an enormous range of powers and, in so far as the current legislation is not strong enough, the Minister will strengthen it with, I hope, everybody's support in the House.

A small number of individuals, some of whom are very young and some of whom may be under the influence of drink and drugs, believe they can intimidate their communities. The only way to deal with that is through the Garda. I said last week nobody should recommend that there is another way to deal with this, though people at times get frustrated about these issues. The only way to do so is to have sufficient gardaí and a force of 14,000 would put Ireland much higher on a pro rata basis than every country in Europe.

We do not have 14,000 gardaí.

There are fewer gardaí in Clonmel now than ten years ago.

A total of 200 gardaí have been recruited, not 2,000.

They have sufficient legislative powers to deal with these criminals in a tough and rough way. I do not think anyone outside the House is saying the curfew and civil orders to name and isolate such individuals in their communities are not tough law. The Government is introducing what is necessary, and the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy McDowell, will bring it before the House in this session.

The Taoiseach is out of touch. I read in one of the newspapers this morning about his doing six hours' canvassing on Saturday and another few hours on Sunday. If he did it at the right times of the day, he would know that the issue is not law but the lack of enforcement. The Taoiseach keeps coming to the House and offering solutions in the shape of more law and tougher speeches from the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. The fact is that considerable powers are available to gardaí, but they either do not have the resources or they are not deployed in a fashion that allows them to implement the law. People in extremis in their own homes are dialling Garda stations from which they receive no response. There is an absence of community gardaí patrolling neighbourhoods. Gardaí are simply not there to do the job that modern living conditions require. People are besieged in their own homes, persecuted and harassed for no apparent reason.

For example, the Taoiseach talks about more law. What about the Child Care Act? It has been on the Statute Book for the past four years, but the Taoiseach has still not invoked major sections. Part 8 covers widespread community sanctions, but it has not yet been implemented. If there were such widespread community sanctions and those young vandals were required to clean up some of the mess they had created——

The Deputy's time is concluded.

——in those neighbourhoods, that would be real action. However, while tough speeches promise more laws, there is no action in the neighbourhoods where people suffer harassment and persecution for no reason but that they are old, vulnerable, women living alone or merely different.

The Deputy's time is long since concluded.

People are being driven out of their own estates and desperately seeking transfers from local authorities. We have witnessed the breakdown of society in many of those areas, and it is not good enough to come to the House asking if the Opposition will support tough laws.

I ask the Deputy to give way.

I ask the Taoiseach to implement the tough laws that are in place and provide the resources to the Garda Síochána.

Enormous resources have been made available to the Garda Síochána regarding its numbers, overtime, equipment and intelligence. I do not think it takes too much Garda strength to deal with 13 or 14 year olds, or, as Deputy Rabbitte said, 12 year olds. They are not armed criminal gangs. Most of what Deputy Rabbitte has been talking about has been done by children causing disruption in their own areas. The Children Act 2001 — not the Child Care Act, as Deputy Rabbitte said — has sections relating to trying to counsel families and rehabilitate such children. One cannot lock them up, and I will not enforce such a policy.

Why does the Taoiseach not implement the provisions?

The sections regarding family counselling, trying to establish control, home liaison and teaching such children that life has a proper order are being implemented. For those who must unfortunately be removed from society, large amounts of resources are being made available, as the Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science, Deputy Brian Lenihan, said yesterday.

Deputy Rabbitte did not mention it, but I am sure that he, like me, has attended many public meetings where gardaí have said in front of several hundred people that there are cases where they do not have the powers to act regarding young people. The gardaí are continually pointing this out. They say that night after night, in hall after hall, to the citizens of this country, and they do so not because they want to dodge their responsibilities but because they believe they need tougher powers to deal with some of those gangs of hoodlums and thugs who simply want to manipulate communities. No one has any respect for them, and there are cases where they simply have to be removed from their communities, but we do not have the powers to do so. We have to have civil and curfew orders to deal with it; that is the point the gardaí are making. We can pass the legislation and then, one hopes, our gardaí will enforce it.

I agree with Deputy Rabbitte on this point. We passed laws in this House many years ago about not drinking in public or walking around with boxes of drink or ghetto-blasters. Many of those powers are ignored, but they exist for the gardaí to implement tonight if they so wish.