Neale Richmond
Question:70. Deputy Neale Richmond asked the Minister for Justice if she will report on the progress of the Community Safety Innovation Fund; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [60605/22]
View answerTuesday, 6 December 2022
Questions (70)
Written answers
Community Safety is about people being safe and, just as importantly, feeling safe within their communities. It’s vital that we empower our communities to proactively address concerns and build stronger and safer communities.
The Community Safety Innovation Fund reflects the successes of An Garda Síochána and the Criminal Assets Bureau in identifying and seizing the ill-gotten gains of criminals. Equally, people across Ireland are working tirelessly in their communities to prevent crime from taking hold and make their local areas safer.
By putting this money back into the community, we can show that there is a direct link between the activities of law enforcement and improving community safety.
I can confirm for the Deputy that 22 projects across the country were successful in their applications for funding and will receive grants ranging from €5,000 to €150,000, totalling €2 million, under the 2022 Community Safety Innovation Fund. The fund opened for applications in April 2022 and a total of 124 were received by the deadline of 8 June.
The funding call for the Community Safety Innovation Fund invited applications from community safety initiatives as well as groups co-funded with local authorities, NGOs and community organisations working on issues relevant to community safety and youth justice.
The Fund reinvests the proceeds of crime seized by the Criminal Assets Bureau in local projects to build stronger, safer communities. Each successful project has detailed how best the community wants to prevent crime and their proposals reflect community priorities and local safety issues
Based on the high quality of proposals received, I believe the successful projects have the potential to have a real impact on their respective communities. I also want to encourage those who applied this year but did not receive funding to apply next year.
We are increasing the size of the fund by 50 per cent to €3 million in 2023. A call for applications to the 2023 fund will issue in the New Year.
Question No. 71 answered with Question No. 65.