Garda Patrol.

All elections are unpredictable.  Sometimes it can be that unpredicted events during a campaign change the outcome.  The shocking and graphic attack on the Regency Airport Hotel has the potential to bring crime centre stage.  In short the call by the Taoiseach for a second Special Criminal Court to deal with gangland criminals became one such topic earlier this week-end. The usual suspects on the far left lined up on radio to defend open trials and transparency.  Within hours their supporters were chasing round the streets of Dublin kicking seven shades of sugar out of a few xenophobes who don’t understand the irony of establishing a Pan-Europe anti immigrant organisation.  Trotskyites don’t do irony or due process either, well perhaps in the radio studio but not on the streets.  So let’s look seriously at some reasons why these gougers think they own the place, (the so called Gangland figures, not the AAA!)

We have a Special Criminal Court which is not working flat out at the minute.  I’m not so sure there is a need for a second one.  It is not so much that either the Central or Special Criminal Court aren’t convicting, it is that they aren’t getting the cases.  Garda aren’t nailing them in sufficient numbers.  It is harder to get evidence where those planning attacks can slip out of the state to hide away in Spain at the drop of the hat.  Garda get one chance only to interview a suspect and it is time limited.  A huge amount of preparation goes on before the person is arrested.  Questions prepared and teams organised.  Perhaps there is enough evidence to get a person charged and possibly convicted.

But there is another grim reality and it is this; No sooner is one thug locked away behind bars than another hood sees an opportunity and tries to fill the criminal void left behind. When Darwin coined the phrase the survival of the fittest, he could never have dreamt that Dublin’s thugs would have embraced it to their hearts.

Criminals like the one executed in cold blood on Friday show nothing but contempt for the democratic process. Far left concerns at protecting transparency or due process in an open trial are notions these gangster dismiss out of hand.  Their predecessors shot Veronica Guerrn dead. They sneer at those they do not control and they laugh most of all at those of us bleeding hearts who value human rights.  So called Gangland figures exploited a disconnect to create an aura that they are some sort of local cult figure who benignly runs their area.

The last person murdered by the IRA before the 1994 ceasefire was Martin Cahill the self styled General. He wasn’t interested in showing the Republican Movement the respect they felt entitled to.  Showing respect is not in the DNA of these thugs. 

Perhaps the focus of concern in relation to Gangland Criminality should be why they exist in the first place.  These thugs fill a need to many in modern Ireland.  They keep the coke lines running and feed the heroin and marijuana demand among many young and not so young Irish people. Nobody gets into drugs with a view of developing an addiction.  But that’s how it turns out. And if it’s not an addiction well a drugs habit will certainly set you back a few bob.

Often the debate about gangland and drugs becomes one as to whether you decriminalise a drug or not and ergo the problems of gangland criminals disappear. The reality is that they don’t.  Gangland Criminals will morph into some other area of criminality.  These guys have a taste for the lifestyle that feeds their egos.  Decriminalising or changing the framework by which drugs are regarded is a legal matter that may possibly help addicts and how they are treated before the law.  Let’s not confuse how you deal with a victim to how you deal with criminality.

The communities that they come from are often marginalised with high historic levels of reliance on the state for income and housing, low levels of educational progression, high levels of becoming a parent early in life, lower life expectancy and poorer health than in wealthier communities. 

So when a general election candidate tells you that closing garda stations in some way has an impact on serious crimes, they are talking nonsense. In fact the more specialised that these type of criminals get, the more special units are needed to collect evidence to convict them and help the communities these guys damaged  for years. Specialised units need to be based in large stations where they have the resources to do their job.  Many of the EU treaties provide for intelligence sharing between EU member states, these treaties were of course opposed at referendum here by many on the left.

Working class drugs barons exemplify most the Thatcherite credo of self-reliance and hard work to acquire wealth regardless of any consequences. They protect ruthlessly what they have built up.  They didn’t need the support of ordinary people to get where they are now.