Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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223. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality if she will consider additional resources to allow an expansion of the Strive programme in Ballymun to allow more offenders to be included; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [32308/21]

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy may be aware the Joint Agency Response to Crime (‘JARC’) is an example of a strategic multi-agency initiative involving an intensive, highly collaborative approach to the supervision and rehabilitation of prolific offenders in particular areas of Dublin and beyond.

The three lead agencies (An Garda Síochána, the Irish Prison Service and the Probation Service) with the active support of my Department and in partnership with other State bodies and community-based organisations, work together in a close and highly structured manner to steer these recidivist offenders away from criminality.

The STRIVE project is a specific JARC initiative established in 2015 and targets the 20 most high-risk offenders, who are identified as causing the most harm in the community, using a coordinated approach with local stakeholders.

The Operational team in Strive includes representatives from the Probation Service, An Garda Síochána, the Irish Prison Service and Ballymun Job Centre.

In line with the Programme for Government commitment to extend the pilot schemes of the Joint Agency Response to Crime to more areas to target prolific repeat and vulnerable offenders aged 16 -21, Justice Plan 2021 contains a commitment to identify areas in which to expand the JARC project.

Key steps in this process include the recent establishment of a new oversight and governance structure for multi-agency offender management initiatives including SORAM, JARC, Domestic Violence & Complex High Risk Prisoners and Life Sentence Prisoners.

The Deputy will wish to note that while these new structures bed down, work is also ongoing on a formal independent evaluation of a number of the JARC initiatives.

Any decisions to expand JARC will be made in the context of the outcome of this evaluation process and will form part of the ongoing agenda for the new oversight mechanism.