Crime Prevention
Dail Éireann — 2026-07-01
============================================================

Jim O'Callaghan (FF), Dublin Bay South

An Garda Síochána has a good record when it comes to organised crime. I was at an event last Friday to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the murder of Veronica Guerin. If we think about that, in terms of the organised drug gangs in Ireland, many of them have been taken out of action by An Garda Síochána. They went to Spain. They were then chased out of there. They went to the United Arab Emirates and they are being chased out of there. You cannot get away from the consequences of your actions. It is inevitably the case that somebody is going to take over. For as long as there is a demand for drugs, there is going to be a business in drugs. We also need a strong message to go out that people who get involved in serious crime, in terms of organised crime, are going to face serious sentences. There are lots of people in prison for organised crime and drug dealing. They have been given lengthy sentences. I urge anyone who thinks they can make money easily by allowing their accounts to be used by others to reconsider. They will find themselves before the courts and, potentially, in prison.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-07-01/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:06+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-01