Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies again for raising this matter in the House this morning. I will take their messages back in terms of visibility, resourcing and gardaí on the beat. The Minister is determined to continue to drive the implementation of the range of community safety policy actions to combat criminal activity and antisocial behaviour. We are very conscious of the effect these behaviours can have on the quality of life for local communities and those visiting in the community. Incidents of assault or intimidation are completely unacceptable, and fear should never become normalised in our society.

As the Deputies will be aware, the budget provided by the Government to the Garda Commissioner continues to increase to unprecedented levels, with an allocation in excess of €2 billion for 2022, including funding for the recruitment of up to 800 additional Garda trainees and up to 400 Garda staff. This significant investment demonstrates the Government's commitment to increasing the Garda workforce to enable the organisation to keep our communities safe. Many of the Garda members to be recruited will be drawn from the Garda recruitment competition that closed in recent weeks, and I very much welcome the fact that more than 10,000 people applied to join An Garda Síochána in this competition.

Record budget funding is underpinned by the ongoing roll-out of the new Garda operating model to support the redeployment of gardaí from non-core duties to front-line policing throughout the country. The new model will see larger divisions with more resources, increased Garda visibility in communities, a wider range of locally delivered policing services, and a strong focus on community policing.

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