Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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116. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the actions he will take to address the fact that the suspects for 40,348 crimes carried out in 2024 were on bail; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12758/25]

Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Many people were shocked - I certainly was - at the reply I received from the Minister that revealed that known suspects in 40,348 crimes carried out in 2024 were on bail. I submitted the question on the back of a number of high-profile instances where habitual offenders, including people who had repeatedly breached bail conditions, were subsequently convicted of very serious crimes. Will the Minister outline what actions he will take to address this very serious issue?

Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy for his question. It is important that policymakers, including Ministers, keep a close watch on the law in respect of bail. I note the answer the Deputy got, which stated that 40,348 crimes were carried out in 2024 while persons were on bail. Like him, I thought that was extremely high. I then asked for a breakdown of a description of the nature of the crimes. Of the crimes committed while people were on bail, 20% were in respect of theft from shops. That is approximately 8,000 crimes. Five thousand were in respect of breach of bail.

Public order offences were 13.7% or approximately 5,000. There were 2,500 drunkenness offences and the simple possession of drugs was in the region of 6% or approximately 2,000 offences. As many of these offences are regarded as summary offences, they would not in the ordinary course of events result in individuals being remanded in custody when people are brought before the court. That is the truth of the matter. When we look at the nature of the offences, we see that many of them are to be prosecuted in the District Court. If people are brought before the District Court on a charge of theft, they obviously have to be remanded for the hearing, but they are not remanded in custody. The Deputy may disagree with that, but the reason they are not remanded in custody is that we already have a problem in our prisons and we would have another 10,000 people if we were going to remand in custody all the individuals charged with offences committed in 2024 that were minor offences.

I am fully aware of the significance of the Bail Act. In 1997, people said they wanted the courts to refuse bail in circumstances where they thought there was a likelihood that a serious offence would be committed. When it comes to people being charged with serious offences, especially violent offences, the presumption should be that bail would not be granted.

Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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To be clear, no one is suggesting that every bail application end with a remand order.

Is the Minister satisfied with the extent to which adherence with bail conditions is monitored and enforced? I received another reply to a parliamentary question from the Minister on 25 February that revealed that, although people were suspected of committing more than 40,000 crimes in 2024 while on bail, there were only 4,146 arrests that year where there was reasonable cause to suspect the person was in breach of a bail condition. Does the Minister agree that the discrepancy between the number of crimes being committed while suspects are on bail and the number of arrests for breaches of bail conditions suggests there is a significant problem with monitoring bail conditions and holding those on bail to account for breaches of those bail conditions?

Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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Serious offences committed while people are on bail should trigger my interest and that of other policymakers. The offences I outlined, including theft from shops, public order offences and drunkenness offences, are the offences committed by people on bail. With the greatest of respect to the Deputy, I do not think they are the issues he is concerned about. He is more concerned about serious offences.

The percentage of individuals who are now in custody and are not on bail has increased significantly in recent years. For instance, it is notable that of the 5,155 people who were in custody on 3 March, 20% were on remand. That is significantly more than in previous years. Since March 2015, there has been a significant increase in the number of people in custody. In the same period, the number of people on remand has increased by 112%, which reflects the approach of the courts in refusing bail where they deem it appropriate to do so. Courts are more in tune with the fact that they should not be granting bail in circumstances where they think it not appropriate. That is reflected in the figures.

Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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I will go back to the Minister's original response where he repeated figures included in the initial reply to the parliamentary question in respect of the most common offence types carried out by offenders who were on bail. He mentioned public order, drunkenness, theft from shops, possession of drugs for personal use and criminal damage, which accounted for 59%. Will the Minister outline to the Dáil the detail of the categories that make up the other 41% of crimes for which no figures were given in that reply?

The number of crimes committed while suspects were on bail went up from 26,000 in 2016 to 40,000 in 2024. My difficulty with the Minister's answer regarding the progress that has been made through the courts in recent times is that it suggests that he is not committing to reviewing the operation of the bail laws, including changes to them that might be necessary.

Does the Minister agree that a real problem results from the fact that we simply do not have enough gardaí in our communities to be able to monitor all these things, particularly to monitor those who have been released on bail?

Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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I do not have the information in respect of the Deputy's question on the other 41% and I apologise for that. If the Deputy asks another parliamentary question, that information may or may not be available. I am not sure at present.

I note what the Deputy stated about the increase in figures between 2016 and 2024. Our population has increased so significantly during that period that it is not surprising there has been an increase.

On reviewing the operation of bail and bail laws, I want to prioritise the introduction of electronic monitoring, which would make matters considerably easier when it comes to remanding people on bail as opposed to in custody. We would be able to monitor where they were. Bail terms and conditions are imposed and we would be able to ensure they are being complied with.

Regarding gardaí not being able to monitor breaches of bail conditions, if the Deputy looks at the statistics I gave him, he will see that breach of bail accounted for 13.8% of the 40,000 offences committed by people on bail. That indicates that the Garda is monitoring bail compliance.