Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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85. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality what steps her Department is undertaking to reduce violent crime in the State. [33728/23]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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Tackling violent crime is a priority for the Government, for my Department and for An Garda Síochána. Everyone has a right to feel safe and be safe in their homes and in their locality and I am committed to ensuring that is the case nationwide.

The Government is committed to ensuring that An Garda Síochána have the resources they need to achieve this. In 2023, over 2 Billion is being invested into An Garda Síochána.

Three innovative Local Community Safety Partnerships are currently being piloted in Dublin's North Inner City, Waterford City and Longford. These are designed to identify and prioritise the issues causing communities to feel unsafe and to address them collaboratively. The development of a Community Safety Plan in each of these areas will ensure that local communities can prioritise those measures which will have the greatest impact in their area. This is supported by the Community Safety Innovation – a fund established by ring-fencing the proceeds of crime and reinvesting back into community safety initiatives.

The Criminal Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2022 will bring forward an increase in the maximum penalty available for the offence of assault causing harm from 5 years’ to 10 years’ imprisonment. This will provide the Courts with a more appropriate range of sentences to take account of the range and gravity of the assaults that fall under this offence category. This legislation will also increase the maximum sentence for conspiracy to murder from 10 years to life imprisonment. This will be a key measure which will ensure that those individuals who direct organised crime can be held fully accountable for their actions.

In addition, body worn cameras are vital in terms of protection of Gardaí and for evidence of the nature of assaults and incidents that they are facing. The legal basis for body worn cameras will be provided for through The Garda Síochána (Recording Devices) Bill 2022. Following a Government decision, my Department will draft the general scheme of the Garda Síochána (Digital Management and Facial Recognition Technology) Bill, which will provide that facial recognition technology can be used by the Gardaí to tackle some of the most heinous crimes, including murder, assault causing serious crime, robbery and burglary.

The Anti-Social Behaviour Forum, chaired by Minister of State James Browne, is focused on developing measures to address the factors which give rise to ASB and its impact on community morale and quality of life. Three subgroups of the Forum have been established to consider the specific issues of knife crime, the misuse of scramblers and quadbikes, and responses to Anti-Social Behaviour impacts on housing complexes managed by Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs).

The Anti-Social Behaviour Forum will also carry out a review of the powers available to An Garda Síochána in relation to public order and anti-social behaviour, to include the effectiveness of Anti-Social Behaviour Orders.

For the Deputy's information, An Garda Síochána runs a number of initiatives aimed at improving community safety and reducing assaults. These include:

• Crime Prevention Officers across the country who are available to offer safety advice and answer concerns from various members of the community, including young people, at community engagement events, such as the recent National Community Engagement Week.
• Operation Soteria - the national operation that has the aim of preventing assaults occurring, through targeted, timely patrols and engaging with community partners to promote personal safety. This initiative continues and has raised awareness of the consequences of assaults on victims, their families and convicted persons.
• 'Use Your Brain, Not Your Fists' - awareness raising campaign that aims to reduce the number of assaults carried out by males between 18 and 39 years of age. It appeals to young males to think of the consequences for themselves and others of being involved in assaults.
• Operation Limmat is the Dublin Metropolitan Region’s (DMR) assault in public and public order reduction strategy. Operation Limmat promotes a pro-arrest and early-investigation approach to incidents of assault, together with driving high-visibility policing in public places to act as a deterrent to prevent and reduce assaults and public order offences in the DMR.

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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A key element of our policy on building safer and stronger communities is that communities themselves have a crucial role to play. There is no one size fits all approach, because each community has different needs and challenges.

My Department's community safety policy is about people being safe and feeling safe in their own community. This approach goes far beyond the traditional policing response and requires all relevant state bodies and voluntary organisations to work together in a joined-up way, in partnership with the local community, to prioritise and address issues in their own area.

The Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill will place statutory obligations on Departments and other public service bodies to cooperate with each other to improve community safety. It also establishes national structures to provide strategic direction and ensure that collaboration is working, and establishes Local Community Safety Partnerships (LCSPs), which will replace existing Joint Policing Committees.

There are currently three pilot LCSPs, including one in Dublin’s North Inner City, which is finalising a local community safety plan, setting out the key actions to address safety concerns in their community and assigning ownership for these actions. This plan will ensure that communities in the North Inner City can thrive and flourish, through collaborative actions to prevent and deter crime and harmful behaviours.

The Department has also provided funding to the Dublin LCSP through the Community Safety Innovation Fund to develop a Community Safety Warden scheme which will promote a space for recreation in and around Wolfe Tone Park, and an extension to the scheme will include the O’Connell Street area during weekends. The scheme will provide a visible presence that will act both as a deterrent to criminal and anti-social behaviour, and as reassurance to the community.

An Garda Síochána, with input from the Department of Justice and the LCSP pilots, have developed a quarterly data template for the national roll-out of the LCSPs to capture relevant statistics on a quarterly basis to inform the work of the LCSPs and the development and implementation of their Community Safety Plans. The pilot LCSPs are also undergoing an ongoing independent evaluation to ensure that, when established nationally, the LCSPs will be designed and supported to help communities prioritise issues raised by its members as safety concerns. A baseline and mid-term evaluation have been completed and data collection is currently underway for the final evaluation of the pilots, which is due to be completed in Q4 2024.

As I’m sure the Deputy will appreciate , it will take some time to establish a measurable level of impact these partnerships and schemes will have on crime prevention in each area, but the early indicators are positive.