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

As I outlined at the outset, this is not just about younger people. I refer to all the measures I have mentioned already, such as the focus on the youth justice strategy and how we can prevent younger people from getting into crime or engaging in this type of antisocial behaviour. It is important that there are deterrents separate from those types of specific programmes, making sure we have enough CCTV. The Bill we will pass tomorrow evening, the Criminal Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, will resolve some of the issues we have had around the general data protection regulation, GDPR, and the roll-out of community CCTV, which most people in this House have asked for and which I have said I am pleased will be resolved. We will be able to ensure that the local authority, working with An Garda Síochána, will be able to put in place CCTV. It is a matter of making sure gardaí are equipped with body-worn cameras. Again, legislation will progress through this House tomorrow to make sure that gardaí are supported and enabled to deal with difficult situations as they arise, be it in our city centre or elsewhere.

It is also a matter of making sure we have enough gardaí on the ground. We have a new operating model coming into play this year. It will ensure for the first time that all divisional areas have dedicated community policing. Of course, we need to make sure we continue to increase the number of gardaí to populate all the new teams working under that model, but I am absolutely committed to that. I will go into more detail on that matter in answer to the next question.

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