Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On GSOC, acknowledging the workload and the need to continuously expand and support the work that it does, the budget has increased by around 19% from last year. That is quite a significant increase. I believe the budget has increased by €2.133 million, bringing it to €13.406 million. GSOC is obviously independent in its function and its work. What we will be moving to do in the new Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill, which is obviously quite a significant Bill looking at all areas of reform across An Garda Síochána, is to strengthen the role of GSOC as an ombudsman. Obviously, there will be particular discussion happening in the months ahead on that reform and how we can make sure that GSOC, remaining independent, has the supports, the structures and the legislative support that it needs to continue to do its job to the best of its ability.

On the mental health element, it was a programme for Government commitment to establish a task force to look at mental health in our prisons. I suppose it is about looking at what is often a revolving door situation, where people come in and out. When they leave, they do not have the appropriate supports and they are in contact with the Probation Service. We must look at what can we do. I and the Minister for Health, along with the Ministers of State, Deputies Butler and Feighan, have come together with our Departments. There is a group that is being chaired by Kathleen Lynch, the former Minister of State with special responsibility for primary care, mental health and disability. For the past year, the group has been looking at all elements of this right down to the type of support that is provided in prisons. We know that there are many people who are not appropriately housed. They should be in Dundrum or perhaps other facilities, but there is not the scope or the space for them. We must also ensure that the appropriate supports are there for those who do need to be in prison and that they are supported when they come out into the community. In terms of the spend and the requirement from that, we will have recommendations in the coming months from the task force. Some of that will fall under my own remit, most likely in the areas of probation and the prison service, but a lot of it will also fall under the remit of the Department of Health. That is why there are three Ministers in the Department who are very much involved in that.

In terms of crime prevention, this morning I spoke of what happened in the last few days. It is unthinkable than a man living on his own in his home, who had every right to feel and to be safe, was attacked viciously. We need to take a number of actions here. We need to make sure that our Garda numbers continue to increase. As I outlined at the outset, that is happening. There will be an additional 800 gardaí this year, 100 of whom are just coming out of Templemore. We must ensure that those who are working behind desks but should be out on the ground are allowed to do just that. That is why there will be an increase in civilian staff also. We must ensure that there are focused and targeted operations in our towns, villages and rural areas. Operation Thor, which has been under way for some time now, is specifically focusing on supporting and protecting rural communities. We also need to focus on the new development of the community safety partnerships, which will allow individual communities to identify what it is that they need and want to help keep themselves safe. The issue of cameras has obviously been very much discussed in recent weeks. In that regard, there is work that needed to be done, because of new GDPR legislation that came into force in 2018, to ensure that the councils working with An Garda Síochána and community groups can apply the law in the correct way. We must ensure that where surveillance is required or where community groups seek to have cameras put up in their locality, they are in line with national and European legislation, and that they support the Garda to do the work that it needs to do, while also protecting people's rights and their right to their own privacy. There are a number of issues to consider here. The incident to which the Deputy referred should not have happened. It should not be tolerated. I might ask anyone who has information, no matter how small they might feel it is, to come forward. It is an ongoing investigation, and supporting the Garda in that regard is hugely important.