James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As the Deputy knows, the public raised a number of concerns last year about antisocial behaviour. There were significant successes relating to organised crime, including both drugs and criminals themselves. Much extra work was put into those types of programmes and into Operation Citizen, which tries to increase Garda visibility. We have seen challenges such as the incidents in Ballyfermot and Cherry Orchard too. That all leads to increases in Garda overtime. The lack of recruitment has resulted in reliance on the existing force rather than having extra gardaí on the ground who can take up the additional work as required. We expect and hope, with additional gardaí coming on stream next year, that there will not be as much reliance on overtime. To a certain degree, unfortunately, An Garda Síochána is a demand-led service. If particular issues arise in a year that we have not anticipated, we will ensure the Garda deploy its resources first and then we will come in to deal with the overtime in the Estimates if needed.