The Minister has outlined before in the House the three essential components to the Government's "zero tolerance" approach to crime: a clear and determined focus on tackling those who are engaged in crime; a determination that the law enforcement agencies will be properly equipped and resourced to deal with crime; and a commitment to address, and where possible to ameliorate, the causes of crime.
The House will already be aware from previous debates that this Government and the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, are particularly committed to ensuring that the best resources and equipment are available to the Garda Síochána. The Minister's record speaks for itself. For example, in the period since he has been in office, overall crime in the State has fallen by approximately 20%. Moreover, when he took up office the allocation provided in the 1997 Estimates for the Garda vote was a figure of £472 million. The provision in the Estimates for the year 2,000 is £671.6 million – an increase of 42% or just under £200 million.
In concrete terms this means that since he has taken office the strength of the force has increased consistently starting from a base line of 10,800. The number of gardaí has now increased to 11,437 and is on target to reach the planned strength of 12,000 by the year 2002. During his term of office we have seen continued investment being made to equip the gardaí with the best of equipment and technology available. This has ranged from major IT investments to funding for a high speed patrol for policing inland waterways and for the purchase of a second helicopter to expand the capabilities of the air support unit.
He is also conscious that any long-term anti-crime policy must engage local communities in co-operation with the Garda Síochána and this is why he established a National Crime Forum in 1998 and why he recently established the State's first ever National Crime Council to continue this open and innovative approach to crime policy development.
Since taking office he has been totally committed to dealing with the twin threats of drugs and organised crime. In this context, he has adopted a twin pronged strategy of, on the one hand, strong legislation backed by tough law enforcement measures and, on the other, a commitment to a multi-agency partnership approach to dealing with the drugs problem.
The Criminal Assets Bureau, since its statutory inception in October 1996 up to 31 December 1998 has frozen assets to the value of £10 million under the Proceeds of Crime Act, demanded in excess of £19 million in tax payments and saved almost £1 million in social welfare payments.