People are reeling since events that took place in Dublin last Thursday. In broad daylight, small children and their carer were attacked, stabbed outside Gaelscoil Choláiste Mhuire on Parnell Square. One five-year-old child remains in hospital fighting for her life and we pray that she and all those injured will make a full recovery. We stand with this amazing school community who, under a heavy cloud of shock and trauma, did incredible work in getting children back to school on Monday.

How have things got so bad that young children are in danger outside their school in the middle of the day? I understand the alleged perpetrator is in custody and, in time, we will learn the story behind all this. The reality, however, is that Dublin city centre has not been safe for some time, with antisocial behaviour, open drug dealing and drug taking, street drinking, and gangs hanging around causing trouble. This should not be news to the Taoiseach.

What happened in the aftermath of the horrific knife attack was deplorable, shameful and criminal. The burned-out cars and buses, smashed-up shopfronts and the experiences of intimidation bear testimony to the destruction inflicted on Dublin by a mob of thugs. Public safety collapsed, people were endangered, and gardaí were isolated and assaulted. The idea that this violence could not be predicted is a nonsense. This situation has been building for months. By 2.30 on Thursday afternoon it was obvious there was a threat to public safety. Where was the Garda Commissioner? Where was the Minister for Justice? A strong policing response was needed. Leadership was needed, but instead brave gardaí were left high and dry.

I have full confidence in An Garda Síochána. I have zero confidence in the Garda Commissioner and the Minister for Justice. The cold truth is Commissioner Harris and the Minister, Deputy McEntee, lost control of Dublin city centre. For years, communities and businesses have been telling the Government that we do not have enough gardaí on the streets, on the beat, on bikes and in communities. When those poor children were being attacked, I was meeting with a major employer in Dublin city whose primary issue is concern for the safety of staff at work and coming and going to work. The Taoiseach is not listening. The Government's depletion of An Garda Síochána has left people feeling unsafe and endangered in this city and beyond.

Teip thubaisteach ar an bpóilíneacht a bhí anseo. Ní féidir leis an Aire, an Teachta McEntee, fanacht sa phost. Caithfidh an Taoiseach í a bhaint mar Aire Dlí agus Cirt because, ultimately, the responsibility lies with the Minister, Deputy McEntee. In July, following several assaults and incidents in Dublin, the United States Government issued warnings to Americans travelling to Dublin. The Minister, Deputy McEntee, at that point declared the streets of the city were safe. Today, the Canadian, Australian and British Governments have issued warnings to their citizens travelling to Dublin.

Yet, the Minister, Deputy McEntee, refuses to accept that control of Dublin city centre was lost. It seems the Minister has moved from denial to full-blown delusion. She is clearly not the person to provide the leadership needed to restore public confidence in policing. Her position is now untenable. The Taoiseach must now do what is necessary, having failed the people badly, and remove Helen McEntee as Minister for Justice.

Hear, hear.

Last Thursday, we experienced two appalling acts of violence on our streets. First, the stabbing of several children and their carer, two of whom remain in hospital as we speak. They are stable, but critical and we pray for their recovery. Second, an ugly far-right protest on our streets led to a riot, looting and serious criminal damage. These events were shocking and unacceptable. It was an attack on the rule of law and there is and will be a robust response from An Garda Síochána and the Government. We need to make sure that Thursday's events were exceptional and do not happen again.

I want people to be and feel safe on our streets. As part of that, the Commissioner has confirmed that two Garda public order units will be deployed in Dublin city centre between now and at least Christmas. They are made up of two inspectors, six sergeants and 42 gardaí, so there will be a visible Garda presence on our streets in the coming weeks. Above all we need to do three things. We need more gardaí, better equipment for our gardaí and stronger laws and more prison places. All those things are already very much under way and were under way before the events of last Thursday, but they need to be accelerated. We now have 14,000 gardaí. About 700 to 800 will go through training this year and about 800 to 1,000 next year. We expect Garda numbers to rise to 14,500 by the end of next year. In addition, more than 3,000 civilian staff free up gardaí for front-line work. We have over 3,000 Garda vehicles - 150 more are on order - we have riot gear for 2,500 gardaí, water cannons are on loan and body cameras will soon be on the way.

We also need to strengthen our laws. The Minister, Deputy McEntee, has already brought in tougher sentences for people who commit serious crimes and attack our gardaí. She has plans for an additional 600 prison spaces to make sure that those who are convicted and given long prison sentences serve them. We also need new laws around the use of facial recognition technology and object recognition technology and dedicated legislation on that is on the way. We will bring in a police powers Bill to give police some of the additional powers they asked for when I visited them in Store Street last week and before the recess the Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill 2023 will be enacted. The response is immediate, medium term and long term and it is and will be robust.

It is true, as the Deputy said, that other countries have issued warnings to tourists, including their citizens, who visit Dublin, but she should bear in mind that they issue the same warnings about many large cities around the world, including their own large cities and capital cities. It is important that when Deputy McDonald talks about our city, the one we both live in, she puts it in that context. I know she does not want to talk down our city in any way.

I have full confidence in An Garda Síochána, in Garda management, including the Commissioner, Mr. Harris, and I have full confidence in the Minister, Deputy McEntee. As Minister, she has led and been extremely active on issues of law and order and criminal justice during her term in office. In particular, I draw the Deputy's attention to the success we have had in dealing with organised crime. In previous years, we saw dozens of murders every year. A lot of success and results in that area are down to her work and that of An Garda Síochána. In addition, she has led on the issue of gender-based violence. We are facing an epidemic of violence against women and no Minister has done more about it than her. Look at what is being done in Drogheda, for example, as Deputy O'Dowd spoke about this morning. These are the results she has been involved in making happen and her work continues.

And therein lies the problem. The Taoiseach is not listening to communities, parents and businesses, including retail businesses. The failures on Thursday in Dublin were political failures.

After 12 years of Fine Gael in government, we do not have enough gardaí to keep people safe. This is not just a problem in Dublin; it is much broader than that. In cities and towns across Ireland, hundreds of stations have been closed, there is a depleted force and a serious recruitment and retention crisis, with people feeling unsafe in their homes, on their streets and in their communities.

People could see coming what happened in Dublin on Thursday. The Taoiseach needs to start listening. The truth is that confidence in policing and public safety is at rock bottom. The Taoiseach needs to now do something about that. I am telling him straight and I am telling him clear: we need a fresh start. The Minister, Deputy McEntee, is not the person to give the leadership that is required at this critical time. Rather than the Taoiseach engaging in delusion and distraction, I ask him to face the cold truth and the severity and seriousness of what happened in the heart of our capital city and move to bring accountability to the situation.

I believe Deputy McDonald is not listening. She is not listening to parents. She is not listening to Dubliners. She is not listening to citizens all over the country. They do not want to hear her playing politics when it comes to an important issue like this.

Hear, hear.

They are not interested in that. They do not want to see her trying to score points and improve her poll ratings or looking for heads. What they want is action from the Government so they feel safe on our streets. I want people to be safe and feel safe on our streets. That is why we are responding with more gardaí, better equipment for our gardaí and stronger laws. All of those things are happening under the Minister, Deputy McEntee, and we will continue and accelerate that action.

It is an absolute disgrace.

Táimid ar fad ag déanamh bróin le comhphobal Ghaelscoil Mhuire agus leo siúd atá fós san ospidéal. Uppermost in all our thoughts and minds today are those who were so brutally attacked on Parnell Square last Thursday - the little girl and the care worker still in hospital; the other children injured and traumatised in the attack; their families, friends, classmates and communities. We think of all of them and send them our very best wishes. We commend those whose courageous interventions prevented even more devastation on Thursday. We also send our thoughts and solidarity to those gardaí and first responders, transport and council workers and others who were terrorised while doing their jobs or peacefully going about their business in Dublin on Thursday, and those who had to clean up after the wanton destruction that resulted from the awful riots we saw that evening. I condemn outright the outrageous violence we saw unfold on our streets, the streets of our capital city.

Nobody here has a monopoly on the distress we all feel in the aftermath of last Thursday but there must be accountability for what occurred. Those shocking events have brought home to us all the true extent of the crisis in policing, particularly policing in Dublin, that has developed under the watch of this Government. On Friday, the Commissioner Harris asserted that nobody could have anticipated the riots, but that is simply not credible. Long before last week, we saw despicable events orchestrated by the far right across the country, including anti-migrant protests, anti-LGBT protests outside libraries and people burnt out of tents on Mount Street. Everyone in this House is aware of the hate and disinformation that is being spread, especially about immigration. I am sorry to say there are high-profile individuals in this country and people in this House and in the Seanad who have used language about immigration that has undoubtedly contributed to the spread of that disinformation.

Hear, hear.

I hope those individuals, and they know who they are, are reflecting today.

There is no one in this country who did not anticipate that the far right might seek to orchestrate unrest in our capital. On Thursday, what we saw was a perfect storm, a complete collapse of order on our streets through a combination of failures, namely, failure to tackle the far right and failure to address the triple crisis of morale, recruitment and retention within the Garda. There were failures at operational level, for which the Commissioner and senior gardaí are responsible. There were failures at political and government level for which the Minister for Justice and all in this Government are responsible. We in the Labour Party have no confidence in this Government's handling of policing. Week in, week out, our representatives have been raising the triple crisis facing the Garda on morale, recruitment and retention. We know what is needed, and that is a stronger response against the far right and, crucially, more gardaí. We need more community gardaí and more gardaí on our streets. We should be reaching for more people and more personnel in the Garda Síochána. That is what the Garda is seeking too - front-line gardaí.

It seems the best Fine Gael can offer is more powers. The Taoiseach cannot legislate his way out of this. How will the Government address whole-of-government failures on policing? Will it move to initiate an independent review into the failures which allowed a small group of people last week to destroy property, injure our police and terrorise our community? We must see accountability and know why those failures occurred.

I thank the Deputy for raising Gaelscoil Choláiste Mhuire, the childcare facility nearby which the children were being brought to and the people who intervened to help stop the attack on Thursday. Many more people would have been injured and perhaps killed had those brave people not gone with their instincts and intervened in the way they did. All of us send our solidarity to Gaelscoil Chólaiste Mhuire and the childcare facility concerned.

I had the opportunity to ring the owner of the childcare facility and speak to the principal of the school a few days ago and to offer them any help the Government possibly can, not just now but in the weeks and months ahead. They have received support from the National Educational Psychological Service. The main advice they have been given is, as much as possible, though it almost sounds impossible, to make things as normal as possible for the children in the school and childcare facility in the coming days. That is the advice they have been given and it is important we respect and comply with that ourselves.

I had the opportunity on Sunday night to meet some of those who intervened in the attack. I was given five names by the Garda; four were able to attend, from Ireland, Brazil and France. I thanked them for what they did to stop the attack. Without it, there would have been more injuries and loss of life.

On the management of protests, The Garda has policed 700 protests in the past year. Protests are commonplace in Ireland, as they are in any democracy. It is important we facilitate peaceful protests. The gardaí on the scene make a decision on an operational basis. None of us are experts in policing protests. Gardaí make a decision on the scene as to what approach is appropriate and escalate as they believe appropriate. Of course, there will be a review into what occurred on Thursday. An initial review is under way from the Garda Commissioner. The Policing Authority, I think, has the authority to carry out a further review, though we will have to check on that.

I concur with the Deputy on some of the language some people have used in Leinster House and beyond it in relation to migration. It is a difficult topic to talk about as politicians but we have to talk about it. It would be a mistake not to. Some of what has been said has stirred up prejudices and there are people on the far right in politics who will want to stir up further discord and encourage further violence. We have incitement to hatred legislation. I do not think it is strong enough or up to date enough. I know this House agrees because it has voted for the new legislation already. It is now in the Seanad. Even under existing legislation, the Garda National Bureau of Criminal Investigation has a number of investigations under way.

What we need to see from the Government is action. We need to see three actions in particular. First is conducting an independent and urgent review into what went wrong in order that we can see proper accountability. A Policing Authority review is not enough. We need to see the inspectorate going in. We need an independent review of what went wrong. We also need to see a real commitment from Government to tackling and targeting the far right and ensuring intelligence-led policing is taking it on. Third, we need a commitment from Government to give front-line gardaí the resources they need, ensure we have more personnel and not allow the numbers to drop – as they have – below 4,000. We need that commitment urgently from Government.

The key issue will be accountability. We saw over the weekend some political grandstanding on this issue and calls not just from Opposition but, it seems now, members of the Taoiseach’s partners in government, a Fianna Fáil Senator most recently, for heads to roll. That is grandstanding and playacting at a time when people in this country and city are calling out for political leadership and unity of purpose against the awful threat of the far right. We need to see unity of purpose and we are not even seeing it from Government. We see Fianna Fáil speaking with one voice in the media, yet rowing in on the Government benches behind the Minister and the Government.

There is a whole-of-government failure here. All of those in government must take responsibility for failing to address the key crisis within An Garda Síochána, which undoubtedly contributed to the breakdown of law and order we saw in our city last Thursday night.

Deputy Bacik has suggested an independent review by the Garda Síochána Inspectorate. We will give consideration to that. It may well be a very good idea. I do not want to commit to it on the hoof on the floor of the House but I will certainly give it consideration. I thank the Deputy for her constructive remarks. She is absolutely right that accountability is required. Before we jump to any judgment on what happened on Thursday night and on whether there were errors on behalf of the Garda, the Minister or the Commissioner, of course we would carry out a review first. That is proper accountability. What we see from the main Opposition party and from others, as Deputy Bacik points out, is grandstanding - judge, jury and executioner, and sure we will do the review afterwards. That is not how politics should be conducted and it is actually not what the people want.

You have been 12 years in government and Dublin city burned under your watch. You are a disgrace.