Aisling Dolan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is very welcome to the House to speak on the Garda Síochána (Recording Devices) Bill 2022. I am a member of the joint policing committee in Roscommon, which covers the brand-new division of counties Roscommon, Longford and Mayo. It is a huge geographic area. While the population is different from that of urban centres, fleet numbers and vehicles for Garda divisions are really important in rural areas.

We had a meeting recently and I am aware of the Minister's concerns. She is very focused on safety in rural and regional areas. She spoke recently of her commitment to the recruits in Templemore and I know there are more cohorts training this year. The Minister has a target of having approximately 800 recruits this year. Those gardaí will be a real boost to divisions across the country.

I welcome the Minister's initiative on the community safety fund. Putting proceeds from the Criminal Assets Bureau back into the local community is crucial. We had serious drug busts in Roscommon and Ballinasloe and it will be wonderful to see how that fund will be used at a local level. That is really important and will have a great impact.

The Bill will include many measures to protect the constitutional and civil rights of individuals. It also gives the Garda the tools to deal with crime in today's world. It is about digitalisation. I have a couple of questions on the operation of CCTV schemes and authorisation by the Garda Síochána and local authorities. I ask the Minister to comment on how that might work in practice. Community groups in Ballinasloe recently asked me how to access funding to be able to install CCTV. They are very worried about antisocial behaviour. The fund the Minister is bringing in is a great initiative and could provide funds for young people in our local towns and villages. It is about how to engage young people as well. It is important that we have access to CCTV and that the Garda, and perhaps also local authorities, will be able to access CCTV feeds. How will that work in terms of engagement with community groups? Will it be through the local Garda station? How does the Minister see that working?

With regard to digitalisation, I may be going a little bit off topic here but it is great the Bill is doing so much as regards having recording devices and so on. I also want to ask about the streamlining of the Courts Service and how we can maximise Garda participation, particularly when we will have so much more data at our fingertips, protected, of course, under the data protection rules.How can we support Garda engagement with the Courts Service in a way that is not to the detriment of the need to have gardaí in local areas? What are the Minister's thoughts on that?

On ANPR, on the joint policing committee in which I was involved, we were shown a video about how that works, how important it is that gardaí are able to link in with different teams and that the calls are being gathered in a headquarters, and how that should and will work. The Minister spoke about ANPR and sharing data to a designated group. Will she give an example of how she sees that working? I thank her for her time today.