Internment the answer to our soaring crime rates

AS public anger rises with each new atrocity committed, the solution appears quite simple.

Faced with anarchy in the earliest days of the Free State, the new government dealt with the situation clinically and with speed. Convicted perpetrators were executed and a population which was far more devout than today’s accepted this solution with pragmatism and little protest.

Eamon de Valera maintained this stance through the 1930s and was also supported by the general public. The results gave clear evidence of the success of such policies as the nascent State entered a period of stability.

In 1956 there were only two murders in the whole year at a time when wealth was minimal compared to the present day.

While the extent to which the death penalty may be viewed as a deterrent must always be subjective, it is beyond argument that the individual concerned can never cause misery again.

Of course we are hamstrung, for now, by EU membership which prohibits capital punishment and its lesser cousin, the birch.

No doubt many would quite happily vote to quit the EU were the opportunity presented to them with the many benefits that might emerge from such an occurrence.

While it is conceivable that public demand will lead to such a volte face if the murder and other serious crime rates continue to soar, an interim remedy is still required.

Internment is a word with historically negative connotations, but the removal of the 200 or so of the worst scumbags, whose identities are well known to the gardaí, would have a dramatic effect. A league table of sorts, but with relegation from the top down. Lock them up in spartan conditions away from the rest of us and see how quickly crime subsides.

Keep adding to their numbers if necessary until the message gets through. Add in zero tolerance for lesser crimes and watch as those responsible cease progressing to the next level as evidenced in New York in recent years.

Unending liberalism from lawyers, judges, politicians and human rights lobbyists has landed us in this mess and rather than have the decency to hold their hands up, their only grand idea is to become even more liberal.

There is a massive political void waiting to be filled in Ireland, but is there any one figure or group who can come from nowhere and do so?

Pat Reid

8 Holness Road

London E15 4EN