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.   

Telling the passengers where to get off!

Margaret Thatcher used to say that the definition of failure was a man in his 30's taking a bus.  The news that Bus Eireann are planning to reduce Expressway services in Wexford shouldn’t come as a huge surprise to anyone. Bus Eireann run a route 5 to Waterford from Dublin along the N25/N30/N80/N81.  Not the most direct route and certainly not the fastest.  But one that connects a lot of villages with big towns. The route doesn’t hit dual carriage way until it reaches Tallaght.  By comparison you can travel from Waterford to Dublin on the M9 in about 2 hours comfortably.  It’s a no brainer if you want to go from Dublin to Waterford by Bus Eireann as to which route you’d take.  Route 5 is for the axe.

Many local communities are fearful of the impact of downgrading of service and ending of dropping off points.   Bus Eireann claim that the Expressway service does not receive a subvention and as a consequence must be profitable.  As a consequence they see routes terminating at Dublin Airport and linking to big urban areas the future for their fleet investment.  Elderly passengers on bus passes don’t seem to rate with the boys in Broadstone.  They are feeling the raw heat of competition from the private sector on their neck.

It’s very hard to feel sympathy for Bus Eireann.  For years the CIE group has gone to the government with a begging bowl looking to be bailed out when in fact they could have look at how to configure services to attract passengers.  The presumption that everyone wants to go to or from Dublin is wrong.  It’s possible with great time delays to go from Bunclody to Wexford return by bus. It takes almost 2 hours unless you want to take the only direct bus that departs at 19.50 and arrives at 20.40 but few appointments in Wexford are this late!  On the other hand if you want to go from Camolin to New Ross it’ll take as long as 3 hours in the morning although about an hour later in the day.  In both cases the journey is about 30 miles.  Clearly for a service branded “Expressway” connecting passengers for destinations other than Dublin isn’t high up the agenda.

Simply by interconnecting services in Wexford passenger numbers using these services could be higher.  Simply by listening to councils, numbers could be higher too.  As a councillor I asked Bus Eireann to run a service between Wexford and Carlow.  Both big towns with 20,000 passengers each, connected by a good road with the potential to interchange bus passengers for Kilkenny.  Carlow IT has a Wexford campus with plenty of students and a market. Sadly I was wasting my time.

At least there is the potential for another operator to tender for the route.  Follow the N81 to Dublin and you come to Tallaght with its IT, Square Shopping Complex and Hospital.  There is a market heading to this side of Dublin from Co Wexford and Carlow. So why did Bus Eireann fail?

That’s for the National Transport Authority to decide.  Any change in service must get the approval of the authority.  There needs to be a business case to reduce services, the NTA will have to listen to the case put to retain the service.  In that case Bus Eireann’s suggestion that it will end the service is conjecture if Wexford County Council want to fight the decision by putting the business case to retain and interconnect the counties services.

It’ll be the first test of council’s role in economic development.