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

The last time I was here, I took the brief as read but I think it would be helpful to go through it this time. The Department of Justice Vote group, which underpins an extensive ongoing investment to support work right across the justice sector, provides for gross expenditure of €3.637 billion across the six Votes in my Department and the justice sector, €3.363 billion of which relates to current expenditure and €274 million in capital expenditure this year. In addition, capital moneys totalling €17.4 million have been carried over to 2024, bringing the total capital allocation available this year to €291.4 million.

I will set out in some detail the key developments in the Revised Estimates As the committee will be aware, one of the main objectives of the funding is to build stronger, safer communities. The budgetary allocation will strengthen the work of An Garda Síochána and the criminal justice sector to prevent and detect crime and protect communities; facilitate Cuan, Ireland’s new statutory agency to support victims and work to eliminate domestic, sexual and gender-based violence; and fund the nationwide roll-out of community safety partnerships.

Continuing to grow and strengthen An Garda Síochána is at the core of this effort. I am determined to continue to provide front-line gardaí with the support and resources they need to ensure communities around Ireland are safe and feel safe. I am pleased to say the gross allocation for An Garda Síochána is €2.36 billion. This totals 65% of the funding for the entire Vote group and includes a substantial capital allocation of €166 million. This capital allocation includes €97 million for Garda ICT, thereby continuing to reform and enhance the ICT systems, which require continual capital investment to ensure gardaí have the equipment and technology they need to carry out their jobs. We continue to support the Commissioner to invest in sophisticated systems for analysis and criminal investigations and to respond to specialist types of crime. This includes upgrading platforms and infrastructure and the continuing development of GardaSAFE, which is the new computer-aided dispatch system that was deployed nationally in 2023 and provides for enhanced victim response, responder safety and data quality.

There is a capital allocation of €57.3 million for the capital building and refurbishment programme. This will fund the OPW to continue the wide range of capital programme works in 2024. With an estate of more than 700 buildings, significant works are required constantly to improve and modernise it. The list of specific stations includes Portlaoise and Macroom, which are divisional headquarters. The Garda stations being developed are Bailieborough in County Cavan, Newcastle West in County Limerick, and Clonmel in County Tipperary. In addition, it will cover some investment in solar panels as part of the AGS climate action roadmap.

There is a capital allocation of €10 million for transport. This includes the purchase of vehicles, continuing investment in the Garda transport fleet. It covers the deployment of electric vehicles to ensure An Garda Síochána continues to maintain a modern, effective and fit-for-purpose fleet.

There will be €1 million in capital for the air support unit. In 2023, contracts were signed for the delivery of two aircraft. A total of €21 million has been spent to date, with some of the balance due in 2024. The fixed-wing aircraft investment will provide a new fully equipped plane with the requisite reliability and enhanced capabilities to support policing and security operations while the helicopter will provide a longer range, high-capacity utility aircraft that is fully equipped with Garda mission equipment. These coupled investments will offer consistent, effective and dynamic support to national units in Border policing and the investigation of espionage, terrorism, organised crime gangs, human and drug trafficking, kidnapping and fuel smuggling or laundering.

In the region of 88% of the Garda current expenditure budget is on pay and pensions. I am pleased the funding for 2024 provides for the further recruitment of between 800 and 1,000 new gardaí and 250 additional Garda staff, which will free up more gardaí for front-line duties. I am also pleased a new recruitment campaign for the Garda Reserve will focus on a broad and inclusive range of candidates, who will provide a visible and practical form of community engagement and support. As colleagues will be aware, the new Garda recruitment campaign was launched two weeks ago and runs to 8 February. I urge anyone with an interest to go to publicjobs.ieand make an application. As part of budget 2024, I was delighted to secure agreement to fund a substantial increase of more than 60% in the training allowance payable to Garda trainees, bringing it to €305 per week. The competition has also seen the maximum age of recruitment rise from 35 years to 50. These are challenging times, but we want to do what we can to ensure we can open recruitment up to as many as possible. An overtime budget of €134 million has been provided for 2024. This includes ongoing support for high-visibility policing to tackle crime and antisocial behaviour. The organisation's capacity will be further strengthened by the recruitment of additional Garda staff, including to specialist roles to support the investigation of crime and enhance the management of An Garda Síochána.

Road safety is a shared responsibility and one this Government takes seriously. We have all been extremely saddened by the loss of life on Ireland’s roads and concerned by the worrying increase in such fatalities after many years of progress on our roads. Road traffic legislation is enforced by the roads policing units but also as part of the routine day-to-day duties of members of An Garda Síochána. To assist with this, the Government is fully committed to providing the funding needed to continue to ramp up Garda recruitment. There will be an additional €3.6 million for GoSafe speed cameras, continuing the increased level of 9,000 hours per month throughout 2024.

The budgetary allocation for 2024 also includes €6 million provided for Garda well-being initiatives, additional medical costs and more than 2,500 units of body armour.

I thank the members and staff of An Garda Síochána for their exemplary service to their communities and ours. The public and I are grateful to gardaí for their outstanding dedication and commitment.

The justice Vote has a gross Estimate provision of €616.9 million. The budget is broken down into two separate programmes - criminal justice and civil justice - and comprises almost 50 separate subheads, including support for a number of agencies. Budget 2024 enables a number of key priorities to be advanced and additional resources provided to agencies and programmes in the civil and criminal justice sectors.

I am delighted the new statutory domestic, sexual and gender-based violence agency, Cuan, became operational on 1 January and started with an overall allocation of €59 million. An interim CEO has been appointed pending the permanent appointment of a CEO, which is being finalised at the moment. Developing and running national awareness-raising campaigns is an obligation under the Istanbul Convention. To date, our campaigns raising awareness of all forms of domestic, sexual and gender-based violence and signposting victims to supports have consistently scored well for impact, which is why there is additional funding in this year's budget.

Youth justice funding has been increased by €6.2 million to €30 million, providing resources to deliver the key objectives in the youth justice strategy. There was an additional €4.4 million to the Probation Service, which will provide for additional staffing and the development of new programmes that work with offenders in the Probation Service to encourage rehabilitation and reintegration. The Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission received almost €3 million in additional funding, bringing its total to €19.6 million. This reflects the commission’s increased workload in terms of volume and complexity and equips it for the establishment of its own Vote under the Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill later this year. The office of the independent examiner has received funding of €760,000. Funding of €2.75 million will support a new national office for community safety, which will be responsible for the roll-out of community safety partnerships. The Gambling Regulatory Authority received additional funding of €2.3 million to support the work to establish the new authority. The community safety innovation fund, which was established in 2022, received a further increase of €1.3 million. Complementing this, the Criminal Assets Bureau received a total allocation €11.9 million.

Funding has been allocated for a 10% increase in criminal legal aid rates, effective from 1 January. This was the €9 million allocated in the budget. Funding for the Legal Aid Board amounted to €53.6 million in 2023. I was pleased to secure an additional €5.6 million in the Revised Estimates Volume, REV, for this year, bringing its allocation to in excess of €59 million. This is primarily to recruit new staff, increase investment in ICT and provide for additional costs directly related to the increase in immigration applications.

As members will be aware, the EU temporary protection directive was activated by the European Council in response to the Russian aggression against Ukraine on 24 February 2022. Section 60 of the International Protection Act 2015 gives effect to the directive in national law. As the war continues to give rise to many challenges, especially for the Ukrainian people, the temporary protection directive has been extended. Additional non-core funding of €34 million has been allocated to continue the work of the International Protection Office, the International Protection Appeals Tribunal and the Legal Aid Board and continue the focus on the humanitarian response to the Ukraine situation. This will build on the major progress made in tackling backlogs and will support the significant reforms already achieved. The International Protection Appeals Tribunal received funding of €9.2 million, representing a significant increase of €4.5 million to support the further expansion of administrative staff and decision-makers so that we can have decisions processed as quickly as possible. During 2023, the number of people claiming international protection increased significantly, with 13,277 applications made to the International Protection Office. This was a slight decrease on 2022. Nonetheless, it was a significant increase on years gone by, which is why this funding is essential.

Turning to the prisons Vote, the gross Estimate in 2024 is €445.9 million, which includes a capital allocation of €30.5 million. This new funding will see more prison officers recruited and 65,000 additional hours to meet the challenges of managing an increasing population in our prisons in a safe, secure and humane manner. It will also provide additional specialist staff in a number of areas, including to deliver on our commitment to provide more than 600 new prison spaces over the next five years. Funding has been provided to cover increases in costs in the operation of the Prison Service, such as catering, clothing, laundry, utilities and medical costs. That said, some of the above pressures on costs are mitigated by the reduced requirement in respect of Covid funding as well as other areas of reduced requirements, for example, compensation claims. As with the Garda, I acknowledge the collective efforts of, and considerable amount of work done by, the Prison Service staff and management and all of those who work with offenders in the service.

Regarding the courts Vote, a total Estimate in gross terms of almost €185.5 million is being provided for the courts in addition to an amount of €1 million in carry-over of unspent capital from last year.

The allocation of a further €1.4 million for the progression of e-probate and other elements of the courts modernisation programme is to simplify the processes in court proceedings and make the services more accessible to everyone. This builds on the courts modernisation programme funding already received in the Estimates for last year and the previous year. The Courts Service modernisation programme is a ten-year programme that will deliver a new operating model for the Courts Service, delivered through digital solutions and designed around users, with simplified and standardised services and accessible data to inform decisions. Funding of €1.4 million has been provided for up to 35 additional staff to directly support the work of the 24 new members of the Judiciary who have been appointed. A sum of €2 million in extra support has been provided to meet additional operational costs across the Courts Service.

A gross Estimate of €28.4 million has been made available to the Data Protection Commission. This includes an increase of €1.5 million by comparison with the previous year. To put this into perspective, the allocation in the very first year was €3.65 million, so there has been a significant increase in a few short years. As colleagues are aware, major technology companies are headquartered in Ireland, so the Data Protection Commission has significant lead supervisory authority responsibilities right across the European Union, due largely to the one-stop shop mechanism. Therefore, it is extremely important that we fund the Data Protection Commission.

A gross Estimate of €4.4 million has been provided for the Policing Authority Vote to continue oversight of the performance of An Garda Síochána at an organisational level. The additional funding allocated is related to the establishment of the new authority, the Policing and Community Safety Authority, which will replace the Policing Authority and Garda Síochána Inspectorate on the commencement of the Bill, which I hope will be passed in the Dáil tomorrow.

I welcome the opportunity to discuss the Revised Estimates with the committee.