James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I reject the statement that gardaí are doing nothing and are simply letting things happen. That is not an acceptable statement to make about An Garda Síochána and about what its members are doing on the front line, especially during the Covid pandemic of the last year.

I understand the Deputies' justifiable concerns around drug dealing throughout our communities. The principal aim of the Department of Justice, An Garda Síochána and everybody under them is that we have safe communities. There are serious concerns around certain communities where people feel intimidated and under serious threat.

Under my remit, I will be bringing the youth justice strategy to the Cabinet table in the coming weeks. Within that, for the first time we are bringing all of the Departments together to tackle the issue of young people getting involved in crime. The Greentown project is targeting the disruption of criminal networks that are bringing young people into crime. We have the Probation Service, and the strategy itself will involve every community. We also have three pilot projects in community safety partnerships. These will effectively address what Deputy Lahart is talking about, namely, getting those people around the table. The community safety partnerships will set up a system somewhat similar to what local community development committees, LCDCs, work on by getting everybody around the table and working together to try to tackle the issues that are there. I will bring forward the issue of money seized by the Criminal Assets Bureau being reinvested into the local community. It is probably a matter for the Department of Finance in the first instance but I will bring that issue forward.

There are real concerns, I hear the Deputies and I will bring these concerns to the Minister to see how much further we can bring them. The youth justice strategy that is coming forward will not address all of these issues by any means, but it is possibly a strong template we can look at to work at getting everybody around the table together.

See this speech in context