Arm the elderly with taser guns and pepper spray, says rural TD
A rural TD says elderly people should be allowed arm themselves with a taser gun and pepper spray.
Independent Deputy Michael Fitzmaurice said that such a move could help reduce crime rates in rural parts of the country.
He said that more needs to be done to ensure people feel safe in their own homes.
"How are we going to be looking at these… and lying in our bed and looking up at them and wondering 'are we going to get bate?', or 'are we going to get killed?', [before] we finally face up to it and say 'we have to help the people, the good-living people'," he said.
The IFA's national spokesperson on crime & security, Jer Bergin, is not convinced that this would be the right approach, however.
"The trick here, in all this is, is exactly the same as gangland operations in Limerick and currently what's going on with that Kinahan/Hutch feud in Dublin," he said.
"What has been shown clearly before is that these people can be intercepted and taken out of the game.
"The same resources need to be put into this to prevent any farmer or any elderly person having to face that situation in their own house or yard."
