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

Money from the proceeds of crime comes directly back into the Exchequer. A decision was then taken that this money should be ring-fenced, spent and put directly back into communities. We have increased it year on year. It started at €2 million, it went up to €3 million and it is now almost €4 million. My anticipation and hope is that it will continue to grow. With any new funding stream, particularly where we are looking for new and innovative projects, there is a body of work we need to continue to do to ensure that people know about it, that we highlight it and that we engage with communities to ensure they put in projects which will fit the criteria here. I do not want to replicate funding streams coming from other Departments. We have seen in some of the applications that people who may not have not received funding for a particular project or for a worker from other Departments have decided to put in an application under this fund. Obviously, that is not what we are talking about here. We want to look at new and innovative solutions to community safety.

I mentioned earlier another fantastic project which focuses specifically on domestic violence in rural areas. It allows domestic violence services to work with other arms of the law and with domestic violence services locally, to link in with the gardaí, to create a structure which does not already exist and to reach out to people in rural communities. If we can get that replicated across the country, would it not be fantastic to see how one person's solution here could help many other people? There is a body of work to do to ensure that people know about this, that we continue to increase the funding and that we can expand on the various projects which are successful.

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