On Monday night, a petrol bomb was thrown at a house in Onslow Gardens in Cork city. A number of children were very fortunate to escape without injury. In the past three weeks, there have been two shooting incidents in the city and very many more serious incidents. Communities in Cork city feel neglected and terrified when incidents like this happen. It is not only Dublin that the Minister, Deputy McEntee, has left exposed by the lack of gardaí. Despite the best efforts of local gardaí, under the Minister, communities in Cork city do not have enough gardaí on the beat. In 2009, there were 31 gardaí in the Garda station in Mahon, just down the road from the Tánaiste. This number went down to 22 and has now gone down to 17. This month, as I told the Tánaiste last week, Cork only got one of the 126 gardaí who came out of Templemore. It got a single garda. The Minister for Justice is letting communities in Cork and across the State down. What is the Tánaiste going to do about it?

First of all, I condemn the petrol bomb attack on that family home in Onslow in Cork, and also the shootings. These are reprehensible actions. I pay tribute to An Garda Síochána in Cork and to the force for the work it does and continues to do to protect citizens in Cork. Cork is a very attractive city, particularly during the Christmas period. The city centre in particular enjoys a bustling civic life-----

Absolutely, but we do not have enough gardaí.

-----and that needs to be said as well. Without question, the issue of garda recruitment is one that is accelerating with the numbers coming in every 11 weeks now.

That is-----

Sorry, these gardaí are coming into training and that is the key issue. Increasing numbers are being recruited through Templemore and the issue then is the allocation-----

We are not getting enough on the streets.

-----of those gardaí. The numbers are approaching 200 recruits going to Templemore every 11 weeks, so the numbers are increasing very significantly through the pipeline. Yes, we need to get more gardaí to Cork and other jurisdictions.