Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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I would like to assure the Deputy that the Government is determined to tackle anti-social behaviour and its causes. A number of priority actions are contained in the Programme for Government to reduce instances of such behaviour and help people to be safe and feel safe in their local communities.

These include the establishment of the Anti-Social Behaviour Forum, which is chaired by Minister of State James Browne. The ASB Forum is developing measures which will address the factors which give rise to such behaviour and its impact on community morale and quality of life. The forum has established four sub-groups to consider the specific issues of the misuse of scramblers and quad-bikes, knife crime, responses to ASB impacts on housing complexes managed by Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs) and to review the powers available to An Garda Síochána in relation to public order offences.

With regard to Garda response times in the DMR area, I am advised by the Garda authorities that GardaSAFE, the new computer aided dispatch system in An Garda Síochána, was rolled out incrementally across the organisation in 2023. The last region, the Dublin Metropolitan Region, went live on GardaSAFE in late November 2023.

The Garda authorities further advise that at this stage, the focus remains on the operational implementation of the system nationwide. Whilst there are some reports available, these are focused on live operational aspects, for example for the Control Rooms to monitor call volumes. I am assured by the Garda authorities that over time, and as the amount of data available from GardaSAFE increases, there will be additional reports available within GardaSAFE itself, and also the ability to utilise the data for bespoke queries and analysis.

As the Deputy will be aware, recorded crime statistics are published by the CSO at Garda Regional level for the Q1 2003 through Q4 2023 period. This sets out the number of recorded offences most commonly associated with more serious anti-social behaviour, such as assault, public order or criminal damage.

data.cso.ie/table/CJQ05