Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 5 October 2016

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality

Estimates for Public Services 2016: Minister for Justice and Equality

9:00 am

Photo of Frances FitzgeraldFrances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to engage with the joint committee on the Estimates in the justice Vote group. The upcoming budget is another stepping stone in our plan to build a strong economy that sets out to create a fair and compassionate society in which everybody will have the chance to succeed and nobody will be left behind and where we will measure ourselves by our national well-being rather than national income.

As members are aware, in June we injected a further €40 million into the justice Vote, an increase of more than 6% on the corresponding Revised Estimate for 2015. The expenditure position in a detailed review of the performance measures set out in the Revised Estimates covered the period 2014 to 2016. It was recently provided for the committee and I hope that document and the subsequent exchanges of correspondence and briefing material have proved useful to members.

The eight Estimates in the justice Vote group comprise a total gross expenditure budget of €2.4 billion in 2016, of which €2.3 billion is current expenditure and €158 million is capital expnditure. More than 63% of this expenditure relates to the Garda Vote, while less than 1% relates to the justice Department. They are smaller but vitally important roles which we have often discussed here in the Policing Authority, the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission and other bodies, As the committee knows, the budget covers a vast range and scale of programmes and expenditure areas. I will outline some of the key changes in the data provided for the period up to the end of June. I will comment in so far as I can on my priorities for budget 2017 and discuss performance-related information.

As I mentioned previously, an important development to be noted is that in the Revised Estimates Volume published in June the Government provided an additional €40 million in Exchequer funding for the Garda Vote in response to the unprecedented challenges faced by An Garda Síochána this year. Let me reiterate that the Government has consistently made it clear that we will fund whatever measures are needed by An Garda Síochána to best tackle the critical and unprecedented challenges it faces. In terms of performance, I will focus on the impact the funding available to An Garda Síochána is having.

A number of targeted Garda operations have been established and resourced by the Government in response to violent crime in Dublin and to address public concerns about community safety. As of last month, for example, there had been 40 arrests and five charges brought in connection with the recent shootings. In addition, the Garda has seized 22 firearms and conducted more than 8,000 lines of enquiry. There have been in excess of 11,520 high-visibility checkpoints. It is important that the committee note this information. The measures have been implemented with significant support from the armed support unit. Of course, there was a huge response from members of An Garda Síochána who wanted to be part of the newly established unit, the members of which have been selected and are in training. We have them looking at a significant amount of CCTV footage, as well as mobile phone traffic and forensic evidence, all of which is being examined. The close co-operation between An Garda Síochána and the Spanish police led to the recent arrest of a suspect in Spain, as well as to search operations targeting criminal activities in Ireland and Spain.

I turn to Operation Thor which began in 2015 and is focused on tackling burglaries and related crimes.

Operation Thor, beginning in 2015 and focused on burglary and related crime, is an example of the Government's response to crime in both rural and urban areas. It has two key objectives: strengthening the law to get tougher on serious and repeat offenders - we brought in new legislation last year to provide for consecutive sentencing; and investing in the capacity of An Garda Síochána to enforce that law effectively.

Operation Thor has provided a swift return on the Government's investment in Garda resources and this is reflected in the recently released official recorded crime statistics published by the CSO. Of course, there is an ongoing programme. I met the CSO early after the inspectorate report was published to discuss the importance of having absolute reliability in the figures. It has an ongoing programme of examination of those figures to ensure that they meet its high standards. As I say, I met the CSO, discussed that and that programme is under way. The figures on Operation Thor show that for the first three months of this year, there were 36% less burglaries than in the first three months of 2015.

These CSO statistics provide a clear measure of the success of Garda strategy under Operation Thor. There has been concentrated police activity throughout the country, including more than 30,000 crime prevention patrols, 38,500 targeted checkpoints nationwide, 2,500 arrests and 2,900 charges, covering a range of offences which, in addition to burglary, have included handling stolen property, possession of firearms and drugs offences.

In the material provided, I brought to the attention of the committee that we plan to bring forward a technical Supplementary Estimate to provide a further €15 million to the Garda Vote from savings elsewhere in the justice sector to complete the additional funding package to An Garda Síochána before the end of the year. In the context of the technical Supplementary Estimate, it is likely - based on expenditure trends to date - that capital expenditure will be reallocated within the Garda Vote and between the prisons and Courts Service Votes to provide for additional capital expenditure in the courts. Prisons will also benefit from this investment as it includes the provision of additional video link facilities in courts thus reducing prison transport costs. These reallocations are the result of close co-operation across the sector.

I will provide the members with more information on these proposals when I return later in the year in regard to the technical Supplementary Estimates. I stress there is no additional Exchequer funding involved, just prudent use of available resources and more effective management of the capital allocation on a multi-annual basis.

I will turn now to the 2017 Estimates process which is well advanced at this stage given that budget day is less than a week away. Members will also appreciate that a key aspect of any budgetary and Estimates process is that no details are released until the whole package is agreed by Government and announced on budget day.

Of course, I have shared some of my priority areas in correspondence with the committee and I will reiterate a number of the main requirements I am seeking to reflect in the Estimates 2017 for my own Department, including accelerated Garda recruitment - this remains a priority and it is a commitment in the programme for Government. We have also said, in order to get more effective management in An Garda Síochána and to continue the reform programme, that we need to recruit more civilians. I want to see this happening next year and I am looking for a budgetary allocation for that. I am also looking for increased funding and, indeed, staffing for important areas that come under the Joint Committee on Justice and Equality, such as the Charities Regulator. We all are aware of the various issues that have been raised about the charities sector in the past year and the increasing governance issues that must be dealt with by the Charities Regulator, and I want to ensure that it has the resources to do that work. Obviously, data protection remains an ever more important issue. This week I met the CEO of Microsoft. We have considerable investment, from that company and from other industries, here and the approach of this Government to data protection is critical. Funding to maintain policing operations targeting gangland and other serious crime remains an important focus for us in the budget for the future and in the work of An Garda Síochána next year.

In regard to additional capital expenditure, if finances permit, I would like to bring forward expenditure to 2017 to allow for the commencement of a new forensic science laboratory. This would mean that this important capital project will be completed in 2019 rather than commencing in that year as originally provided for in the capital plan. Everybody recognises the importance of having new appropriate facilities for forensic science in terms of the prosecution of crime and evidence building.

Finally, before I conclude I will comment briefly on the linkage of performance measures to the Revised Estimates which is an important development, no doubt the process can be improved and we all have a part to play.

An Garda Síochána is currently undertaking a revised approach to performance measurement in the context of the 2017 policing plan. The Policing Authority has a significant interest in this also and will have input into this process. Similarly, my Department's working group on efficiency measures in the criminal justice system has also set the development of performance indicators in order to measure the output of the various efficiency measures, as one of its priority objectives over the coming months. There is no shortage of data but the availability of more consistent data across the criminal justice area is a priority area for my Department. Of course, the development of IT and inter-operable IT systems remains a big challenge, but one that must be met if we are to have a more effective justice system. We want to do this in a structured and collaborative way, with the benefits outweighing the cost of providing the information because IT is expensive and the end product realising the objective of better information that can guide both policy and criminal investigation and prosecution. This will support and enable the work of policy makers, the important oversight role of Oireachtas Members and ensure that the taxpayers' resources are being used in a constructive way. On that note, I will conclude for now. Obviously, I look forward to hearing the views of members.

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