Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 23 September 2021
63. Deputy Mark Ward asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if the €5.3 million recently returned to the Exchequer from the Criminal Assets Bureau can be ring-fenced and reinvested back into the communities that have been mostly impacted by crime. [45399/21]
View answerAs the Deputy will be aware, earlier this month the Minister for Justice, Heather Humphreys TD, welcomed the Annual Report of the Criminal Assets Bureau for 2020. The report was submitted to the Minister by the Criminal Assets Bureau pursuant to the provisions of section 21 of the Criminal Assets Bureau Act, 1996 and brought to Government by Minister Humphreys. The Report, which has been published, outlines that the Criminal Assets Bureau returned €5.3 million to the public purse in 2020. Proceeds of crime actions, together with actions under the revenue and social protection provisions, yielded in excess of €4.2 million to the Exchequer. A further €1.1 million was returned to the Exchequer under section 24 of the Criminal Justice Act 1994, which allows for the confiscation of assets of a person who has been convicted of drug trafficking and where the court has determined that the offender has benefited from drug trafficking.
As I stated in my previous responses to similar Parliamentary Questions last year any proposal to ring fence funding allocations would contravene a general principle of public financial management that earmarking revenues for a specific expenditure programme would constrain the Government in the implementation of its overall expenditure policy.
Notwithstanding this position, the continued importance of community crime prevention initiatives and the need for the prioritisation of funding for such initiatives are matters on which both the Minister for Justice and I are agreed.
I am of the view that as a Government we need to clearly demonstrate to communities how success in detecting and combating crime can be linked in more transparent ways to support for youth diversion programmes while respecting the principles of public financial management. In recognition of this, earlier this year, the Minister of Justice and I jointly announced our agreement in principle to establish a new fund to support community safety in the context of Budget 2022. Provision for the new Community Safety Innovation Fund will be included in the Justice Vote as part of the Estimates process and will reflect the significant successes of An Garda Síochána and the Criminal Assets Bureau in disrupting criminal activity and seizing proceeds of crime.
The Community Safety Innovation Fund will support the work of new Community Safety Partnerships in every local authority area by providing prioritised funding to the best community safety proposals. It will also encourage the development of innovative ways in which to improve community safety from people within the community itself, as each Community Safety Partnership will bring together residents, community representatives, business interests, councillors, local authorities and State services such as An Garda Síochána, Tusla and the HSE to devise and implement Local Community Safety Plans. The Plans will outline how the community proposes to support crime prevention and will reflect community priorities and local safety issues. The goal is to make communities safer for families, residents and businesses.
