Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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264. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the cost to double investment in restorative justice programmes. [17253/24]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy will be aware, restorative justice is a criminal justice process which has been shown, through mediation, to help victims recover from crime, reduce reoffending and save public resources. It is one of a suite of measures available to the criminal justice system.

It is delivered by the Probation Service, both pre and post-sentence; by An Garda Síochána within the Garda Youth Diversion Programme, and by Community-Based Organisations (CBOs) that receive referrals at specific points in the criminal justice process.

In October 2018, the Probation Service established a National Restorative Justice and Victim Services Unit, which provides support and training to Probation teams across the country. This Unit is located in the Probation Service Headquarters in Haymarket, Dublin 7 and comprises a small team including 1x Assistant Principal Probation Officer, 1x Senior Probation Officer and 1x Probation Officer.

The Unit provides leadership and support for the consistent and integrated provision of a range of restorative justice models including family/restorative conference, offender reparation panel, victim offender mediation and ‘bespoke’ restorative interventions. It also provides a central point of contact for an effective response to victim queries and requests.

The operating cost of the Restorative Justice & Victims Services Unit per year is approximately €234,000.

Alongside this and as part of Budget 2023, additional funding of circa. €65,000 was allocated to recruit an additional Restorative Justice Outreach project worker for the Northwest Region based in Tuam, Co. Galway. This project worker has been in place since last November. The project worker is assisting with the increasing demand for Restorative Justice interventions in the Northwest and is supplementing the work undertaken directly by Probation Officers regionally.

In addition to the direct support and training provided by the Restorative Justice and Victims Services Unit, the Probation Service currently provides €787,770 in funding to five community-based organisations to provide dedicated restorative justice programmes. These 5 programmes and the areas they provide services to are listed below:

• Restorative Justice Services - Dublin,
• Restorative Justice in the Community - Tipperary, Laois & Offaly,
• Le Chéile - Limerick,
• Cornmarket Project - Wexford and
• Tuam Community Training Centre - Galway, Sligo, and Roscommon.

In 2023, Minister Browne published the Department’s policy paper ‘Promoting and supporting the provision of Restorative Justice at all stages of the criminal justice system’. The paper affirmed the Probation Service’s role in driving developments in this area and commits to providing dedicated funding to support expansion of restorative justice services.

The total budget allocated to the Probation Service for Services to Offenders for 2024 is €20,032,000, an increase of €1,500,000 in overall funding. €250,000 of the funding has been earmarked to further configure the network of CBOs in the delivery of enhanced restorative justice services and funding of €65,000 has already been provided to Restorative Justice in the Community to enable the expansion of Restorative Justice Services into the Midlands.

The Probation Service is currently in the process of finalising a 3-year Restorative Justice Action Plan to drive out the integration of Restorative Justice into Probation Service practice and to enable the expansion of Restorative Justice provision nationally.