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JUSTICE MINISTER FRANCES Fitzgerald has described the threat posed by dissident republicans as still “real and persistent”
Extra funding for the gardaí over the next year will help the campaign to counter the groups, the Minister said.
She made the comments in an answer to a parliamentary question tabled this week.
Operational security co-operation is the key to putting these groups out of business and the Garda authorities work very closely and successfully with their counterparts in Northern Ireland in actively bearing down on these groups and on the organised criminal gangs with which the paramilitaries are inextricably linked.
“They are deeply involved in serious crime in order to fund their activities and their lifestyles,” Fitzgerald said.
The Department of Justice was granted an extra €141 million in expenditure in this month’s Budget, which Fitzgerald hailed at the time as a “breakthrough”.
An additional 200 gardaí will be recruited, with the first intake happening before the end of the year. Another 100 will enter Templemore in January.
“I am strongly committed to ensuring that the Gardaí have the necessary resources they need to bear down on these groups not just in terms of personnel and equipment but also in terms of the legislative provisions available,” the Minister said.
In terms of additional legislative powers, Fitzgerald referred to the recently published Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) (Amendment) Bill 2014 which creates three further offences of ‘Public Provocation to commit a Terrorist Offence’,'Recruitment for Terrorism’ and ‘Training for Terrorism’.
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I would still take issue with the description of such folk as ‘Republicans’. Allowing pure and unadulterated criminals to hang a flag of convenience over their activities is much too generous. I will accept that some politically minded types may have joined the ranks of the ‘dissident’ organisations as they grew disillusioned with the progress of the Republican Movement, but they would be utterly swamped now by the hard boys and the drug dealers. These organisations are not concerned with the Republic, and should not be allowed to sully the names of Pearce, Tone, Barry et al.
good point,truthful,would be like branding all rapists as republicans,when theres probably some rapists who’ve never even been to a sinn fein rally.
They call themselves Republicans and there is no reason to distinguish them from the Republican movement. The Republican movement has a long history of engaging in criminality whether diesel laundering, extortion, drug smuggling or robbing banks. It’s only a few years since Republicans robbed Northern Bank.
You go to Monaghan and there are many many farms which you were bought with “diesel money”. Republicans can’t just disassociate themselves with their history of criminality because they feel like it. Criminality is inkeeping with the Republican tradition.
Another FG troll Monaghan is full of them
David can you back up your assertions? Why haven’t CAB gone after these farms bought with the proceeds if crime if this is the case. Can you also name some PIRA members that were convicted of drug smuggling seeing as they have a long history in it. Surely there will be a long list of IRA men jailed for drug smuggling/dealing as there was for arms smuggling if that was the case.
Fg members are not all blueshirt fascist unionists who enabled state pedophilia and child experimentation, at least i know 2 who aren’t.
Ah they would fit in nicely, drugs, are not a new thing to the republican money makers, any means to their end.
Good man Pat , bury ur aul head there. I’m sure you like Mary Lou believe Gerry wasn’t in the IRA either, he just stayed at home and watched TV while his mates were out doing what they do .
Use the extra gardai to go after white collar criminals and make sure they actually go to prison not serve community service
The guards don’t decide what sentence they get….
Tge biggest threat to this country is drugs and drug gangs .Were is the extra funding for that ??
Shur they’re part of our GMP figures now. If you put them out of business our GMP figures will go south and the interest rates the government pays to the bond holders will go north.
Joe, the dissidents are the drug dealers.
” the dissidents are the drug dealers.”
The state is the drug pusher. Kieran Boylan worked for the state, his job was to push heroin into working class communities. The sooner that people wake up to this corrupt state the better.
Or you could use all the Garda who are currently stationed around water Meters. . . Seems to be plenty of them wasting taxpayers money while instead they should be protecting the people instead of unnecessary violence. It’s shocking how many videos are going around of abuse and Garda taking people’s phones off them to delete the evidence. It’s a shame that a fair amount of news outlets are owned by Dennis and the state owns rte. I’d say most people don’t even know half of what is going on out there myself included.
Blah bl;ah blah paranoid nonsense derp derp derpity derp… elites corporations denis o brien media bias derp derpity derp
Another 200 guards cos ‘d people won’t do what they’re told’….
This article has nothing to do with Irish Water, but Sinn Fein will always find a way to promote their looney agenda.
Or you could be open minded and look at both sides of the story. Guess your just content on looking at the mainstream news.
Sergeant Yates, you wouldn’t by any chance be related to Dob’s latest purchase – Ivan of newstalk radio would you or are you just a sympathiser !!
He’s right. Most people here are too arrogant to see the big picture if what is really happening here and in a global scale.
good to see her taking some positive action,plus putting more republicans behind bars should also have the knock on effect of reducing incidences of rape.
Finna Fail claim to be a Republican party so by your logic does that mean that all FF members should be classed as high risk when it comes to rape? Just when I thought the bounds of stupidity couldn’t be pushed any further you come along and prove me wrong.
Only the dissident FFers, they’ll be coming after the likes of Martin McGrath of the Continuity FFers.
Mattie
Brian
Spot on
John
There are troll’s on here with half a brain, you don’t even come under that heading, your just a pure gobsh*t. And chin with a brain the size of a pea is not to far behind you.
Putting you behind bars could reduce the incidents of really thoughtless and actually really insulting comments to women and republicans John.
The threat from republicans is minimal to the state, take a look around your community and you will see the biggest terrorists are the drug barons, they cause mayham selling drugs and the crime associated with it, a walk through Dublin city centre highlights where the real problems lie. Its not republicans who send hundreds of millions a week offshore to criminal gangs or who operate drug networks all across the country. This government needs to get its priorities right and tackle the real indiscriminate criminals.
Mr Phil. Many of those Drug Barons are involved with these dissidents. Trying to distinguish between a Drug Baron and a Dissident Republican can be extremely difficult these days.
the government are far more dangerous criminals than dissident republicans in fairness Mick
When was the last time the government threw a pipe bomb through someone’s window or but a bomb under someone’s car? When was the last time the government walked into a bar and opened fire?
So don’t make stupid statements like “the government are more dangerous than dissidents”.
‘don’t make comments’… fascists telling people what to do again, are you a blueshirt mick?
Another stupid comment. You are out doing yourself today.
Mick you would do well to check the statistics, take the indirect crime that feeds the organised criminal networks of gangsters on top of gangland hits and bombings compared to republican activity. Its not republicans that is shooting and bombing the streets on a weekly basis it’s the drug gangs that is responsible and the effects of these criminals is felt in every community while the barons are operating with impunity from abroad.
If it was a republican godfather abroad flooding our streets with guns and drugs and causing a nationwide surge in criminality the government would be mobilising the army to deal with them. The reason the “government” doesn’t crack down on the drug lords is because they don’t claim to be the rightful custodians to the island of Ireland.
don’t see 100,000 people out marching against dissidents
…just to add, billions has been taking out of the Irish economy and sent offshore to drug barons and into international criminal networks by gangsters in Ireland.
Improper. So you think water meters are dangerous to public safety? You think that paying for water is going to kill someone? Get a grip.
if the water scam isn’t abolished someone may end up getting killed
By who? You?
Mr Phil. Where do the dissidents get their arms and explosives from? And where do they get the money to buy those arms and explosives?
yeah im going to download the ‘ray gun app’ on me smart phone Mick
Then why make the comment?
are people not allowed to speculate?
That’s the SF/IRA way though isn’t it? If they don’t agree with a political issue, they start shooting and bombing innocent people until they get what they want. It doesn’t work of course, but they haven’t the intelligence to figure that out.
Improper. There is a difference between Speculation and Implying. You were Implying.
speculating , in your suspicious mind I was implying. are you in the ‘blue and tans’?
Once again with a stupid comment.
If thirty Gardai can stand around where one set of workers are installing water meters then the Govt couldn’t be too worried about dissidents.
You wouldn’t be wrong to question just who the real terrorists are in this Country.
I think it’s the people that we have elected.
Toby. If the protesters weren’t harassing and intimidating the meter installers then there would be no need for a Garda presence and they could be more usefully deployed. So I would suggest getting the protesters under control and thus allowing the Gardai to get on with their other duties.
the ‘blue and tans’ are doing their fair share of harassing and intimidating themselves
Inproper. So do you think its acceptable to harass and intimidate ordinary people doing their job?
when the company is trying to install a water meter without a license and the property owner doesn’t want a meter installed, well yes he should defend his property . if the Gardaí are siding with the criminal Irish water scam, then as far as im concerned the Gardaí are the real dissidents, hopefully they see sense and side with the people and become heroes just like they have done in Thailand recently
So if the ESB decide to install an electricity meter or Bord Gas a gas meter they should be harassed too?
And what is this rubbish about them having to have a licence?
And btw private citizens don’t own the water mains any more than they own the mains Electricity cables or the mains gas pipes.
The Republican Unity Network are a dissident group. Awkward times ahead for Enda Kenny and Micheal Martin.
Was a certain person in the media 24/7 these days a central figure in that organisation up to recent times?
No Pat. None of that is true. You see, the issue revolves around how Republican attempts to administer justice in the absence of an acceptable police force was wrong. But the RNU, either rightly or wrongly, have been associated with groups who have gleefully administered such ‘justice’ long after the war concluded. It would be ludicrous for a leading member of such an organisation to turn around and make an issue of such things surely? Therefore it couldn’t possibly be true.
On a serious note though, I think if I were a Fianna Fail strategist I would be quite happy with all of these developments. Fine Gael done all of the heavy lifting with trying to knock SF, so now that we discover that they have in fact been standing shoulder to shoulder with dissident ‘republicans’, it is damaging to them too. So FF can sit back now and watch two of their main rivals get put through the wringer. The revelation that Kenny has not met with other victims of abuse despite a request to do so, thereby proving beyond any reasonable doubt that his concern is certainly not the welfare of these people; that’s just the icing on the cake. If I were Martin today I’d be a very happy man. The only major criticism is that they shouldn’t have opened their mouths at all until the facts became a little clearer. If they had done that it would have been a spectacular little coup for them.
Have a read of this article, who is this person that they speak of throughout the article with the same name and their position as secretary of RNU Ard Comhairle wrote at the end. If true it has serious repercussions for this whole case due to the issues that this case resolves around that you described.
Interesting Pat considering this statement on their website “We do not accept the legitimacy of An Garda Síochána or the RUC/PSNI, both are deeply Political Police forces whose main objective remains the crushing of revolutionary sentiment in Ireland north and south.”
Pat, I was clearly being ironic……
I disagree with her government running down the garda force to a barely sustainable level over the last few years and all the while using the organisation as a political football and now attempting to gain credit for actually attempting to run it properly. The 100 guards in training and the extra 200 guards which were also promised last year will still not bring garda numbers above the 13000 threshold identified by Commissioner Callinan as the absolute minimum necessary…..
Extra Gardai will probably just end up as security for Irish Water.
good point concubine newman,keep spinning away,comrade,and i,for one,would like to welcome our new shinner moral guardians.
If security were employed by Irish Water, the costs would be passed on to the people of Ireland in the form of additional charges. Gardai should be out making better use of their time, but for god sake the protestors shouldn’t be giving the Guards a reason to be there constantly. All for peaceful protests, but the lads fitting the meters etc are only doing their jobs. Trying to make a living like anyone else.
but we are not paying the charge anyway
maybe dissidents should kidnap Herr Enda Kenny, republican popularity would soar thru the roof
They still can’t find this “Nidge” fella anywhere.
Drug and serious crime gangs need to be targeted more than dissident republicans.
These drug gangs are armed to the teeth and making millions. In Dublin there’s kids on nearly every street knocking out a bit of hash or coke on their behalf down the local.
Certain Irish people in Spain are on a par with Pablo Escobar with how much they flood Ireland with and how rich and powerful they’ve become.
The RIRA etc are full of under 30′s with no idea of bomb making and absolutely no capacity to launch anything other than a one off attack like the Massarene barracks a number of years ago.
Put the resources into tackling crime gangs they’re like the Mafia.
Security for Water meter workers… Security for Water meter workers… Security for Water meter workers… It’s all im seeing everywhere lately. Cop on seriously people. They have to pay them aswell do ya think they want to be doing it?? They’re only doing what they’re told to do give it up!!!!!
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