Written answers
Tuesday, 25 March 2025
Department of Justice and Equality
Departmental Funding
Tom Brabazon (Dublin Bay North, Fianna Fail)
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564. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the names of projects within the Dublin north Garda division that received funding under the Community Safety Innovation Fund in 2023 and 2024, and the amount received per project, in tabular form. [13999/25]
Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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In 2021, the creation of the Community Safety Innovation Fund was announced to reinvest proceeds of crime funds returned to the exchequer by the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) back into communities, in order to fund local projects aimed at building stronger, safer communities. The Fund has since been renamed the Community Safety Fund (CSF).
Investing this money back into the community is a tangible way of showing that there can be a direct link between the activities of law enforcement and building stronger, safer communities. The CSF encourages and supports the development of ways in which to improve community safety from those people who best understand the needs in their locality.
Some themes of last year’s successful applicants include projects aimed at addressing anti-social behaviour, domestic violence, drug-related intimidation, safety on public transport, social exclusion, youth programmes, prison post-release support, and more. Many of the projects focus on the use of education, sport, recreation, and social interaction to proactively address safety concerns in communities.
The table below outlines successful projects in the area requested by the Deputy, and the amounts those projects have been paid in 2023 and 2024.
Community Safety Fund 2024 – Dublin North
| Applicant | Project | Funding Received |
|---|---|---|
| Dublin City Council | Dublin Safe Bus Project - aims to enhance night-time community safety. | €150,000 |
| Dublin North Inner City Community Safety Partnership (this application is being made by a consortium, comprising of DCC, Dublin Town, LCSP and Ana Liffey Drug Project, LCSP are the lead partner) | Wolfe Tone Square Local Community Safety Warden Scheme. Wolfe Tone Square Local Community Safety Warden (LCSW) scheme promotes community/business/State agency/community & voluntary sector engagement on safety and reimagining of a positive perception of safety for all users of the space. | €150,000 |
| Merchants Quay Ireland | Peer Engagement Project - aims to address criminal and antisocial behaviour related to drug use through a peer led approach. | €142,808 |
| Sphere 17 | Detached Bus – Out N About: to enable detached youth workers to engage with young people on the street. | €128,654 |
| Dublin City Council on behalf of Darndale Implementation Oversight Group | Darndale Implementation Oversight Group (DIOG) - to collaborate with a media company to develop and execute a communications strategy that keeps the community informed about progress and developments. | €114,316 |
| North Inner City Drug Alcohol | Evaluation of Sports Engagement Programme’– to provide various sports programs aimed at diverting youth from street crime and substance misuse. | €70,000 |
| National Women’s Council of Ireland | The Women’s Community Safety Café - to develop, create and conduct The Women’s Community Safety Café. | €60,314 (one year pro-rata) |
| Ballymun Local Drugs and Alcohol Task Force | Making My Own Choices Project, Ballymun - a team of community-based drug workers will conduct a four-week education program each term in all 11 primary schools in Ballymun for two years. | €45,500 |
| Northside Partnership | Connecting Youth - to design and implement Connecting Youth – a targeted 10-week programme for young people at risk in D17 and D5. | €21,600 |
| The Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (Nationwide) | Non-violent Resistance - is a 9-week, supportive program for parents experiencing child-to-parent violence that involves group work and face-to-face support. | €68,915 (one year pro-rata) |
Community Safety Fund 2023 – Dublin North
| Applicant | Project | Funding Received |
|---|---|---|
| WASP | WASP Community Education Programme CLG - WASP aims to build upon their 2020 drug related intimidation pilot to establish a mechanism of support for those experiencing intimidation. The project is seeking to employ a temporary project worker (24 months). | €150,000 |
| Acts of Compassion | Ethnic Policing Forum Project - aims to provide vital support to a range of vulnerable migrants in Dublin’s North East Inner City. Plans to employ a gatekeeping worker who will facilitate intervention meetings in the ethnic policing forum group’s engagements with local Gardaí. | €20,000 |
| Lusk Community Council CLG | Creative Lusk 2025 - Lusk is a rapidly growing town, increasingly facing youth anti-social issues. This means that the community is becoming less safe and residents are concerned about a downward spiral where such activities become normalised. Creative Lusk will seek to creatively address these anti-social issues using arts, curiosity and innovation in the town to connect with the “hard to reach” youths and present alternative role and peer models for the youth to engage with. | €150,000 |
| Ana Liffey Drug Project | Law Engagement & Assisted Recovery Smithfield /Broadstone Project - to provide frontline social inclusion case workers to work with people in the Smithfield/Broadstone area who are referred by Gardaí. The case work would support people away from antisocial and criminal behaviour and towards addiction and social recovery. Cases would be co-managed with Gardaí, with explicit service users consent in place. | €107,964 |
| Bohemian Football Club Company | North Inner City (NIC) Sporting Alliance Programme - intends to provide frontline social inclusion case workers to work with people in the Smithfield/Broadstone area who are referred by Gardaí. The case work would support people away from antisocial and criminal behaviour and towards addiction and social recovery. Cases would be co-managed with Gardaí, with explicit service users consent in place. | €147,175 |
| Inner City Organisations Network ICON | Community Safety Response to Child and Human Trafficking in the NEIC - The project aims to develop and implement a community-led response to child and human trafficking. Modelled on similar work in the UK (‘Not in Our Community Campaign’, an award-winning campaign by the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Humberside), the project aims to raise awareness through information and support campaigns based on lived experience. | €28,000 |
It should be noted that funding is distributed following a review and assessment of applications received. Furthermore, funding is distributed in a managed way over the period that projects are operational, and so funds are required each year to complete prior year's projects. Therefore, the distribution annually does not strictly adhere to the total amounts available.
Following the establishment of new National Office for Community Safety, it will manage the fund in conjunction with new Local Community Safety Partnerships, further enhancing the CSF's ability to target worthwhile community-based projects.
The fund was increased to €4m in budget 2025.
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