The Garda Commissioner is responsible for the management and allocation of Garda resources. We are assured by the Commissioner that, when allocating Garda resources, consideration is given to commitments and undertakings outlined in the annual policing plan. The requirements of all Garda divisions nationwide are also taken into account, which include local and national crime trends and workloads, policing arrangements and operational strategies, local population and trends, and geographical area and size. Transfer applications, including welfare, personnel issues and concerns, are also taken into account. Under budget 2026, the Minister, Deputy O’Callaghan, secured funding of €2.74 billion for An Garda Síochána to support recruitment and staffing. This will support recruitment of up to 1,000 gardaí, 200 more Garda staff and additional members of the Garda Reserve. Significant initiatives have been taken to boost recruitment, which have been reflected in the numbers entering the Garda College, which was just under 800 in 2025. As the Deputy will know, recruitment into An Garda Síochána has gathered real momentum and we are determined to ensure we have a steady pipeline of new recruits into the Garda College so that we can see more gardaí assigned all around the country. Interestingly, the most recent recruitment competition, which closed on 3 June 2026, attracted 4,115 applications. This brings the total number of applications received to join An Garda Síochána to over 15,000 since February 2025. We are informed that as of 31 May 2026, there are 561 gardaí assigned to the Meath-Westmeath division. This includes 323 gardaí assigned to the Meath south and Meath north community engagement areas, which include Ashbourne, Kells, Navan and Trim.

Sentiment score: 0.33

Obviously, population trends are monitored on a continuous basis, but looking at what we are doing to ensure overall community safety in County Meath, the Department is pleased to secure €8 million in budget 2026 for the national office for community safety to ensure the office carries out its functions, including its support for local community partnerships and the work on the national development of a national strategy for community safety. Much of the Deputy's constituency is obviously rural. One of our success stories is Operation Thor. Several Garda operations are already supporting the plan, such as Operations Thor and Táirge, which tackle burglaries and theft from homes and retail crime, respectively. In recent years, An Garda Síochána has had unprecedented success in reducing and preventing burglaries through Operation Thor. In the ten years since Operation Thor began, burglary and related offences have declined overall, and the number of residential burglaries during the winter months of October to March have fallen by a remarkable 75%.

Sentiment score: 0.39

I take the opportunity to commend the gardaí on the street. We are seeing huge effort being put in gardaí, not just in Dublin city but on a nationwide basis. We can see the number of people going through Templemore and the standard of the gardaí coming out of Templemore is really noticeable. Population trends and community trends are always under review. We are using census data to ensure that populations are represented according to increases in the local population. This will be reviewed on a continuous basis. The Deputy's point is well made and I thank him for asking this question.

Sentiment score: 0.27

The Deputy, the Minister and I all represent inner-city Dublin constituencies and we know very well the devastation the grooming of children into criminality has on all our communities. I have delegated responsibility for youth justice, and it has been a priority of mine since before my appointment to the Department of justice. I am very glad to take this question today. The Government’s Youth Justice Strategy 2021-2027 creates a whole-of-government framework to address the challenges around children and young adults' involvement in the criminal justice system. It assesses how we can stop young people from becoming recurring adult offenders, as the Deputy described. Among the key actions within the strategy is targeting harder to reach groups, including those subject to grooming and coercive control by criminals. An interesting programme the Deputy may be aware of is the Greentown programme, which aims to disrupt the grooming of children into network-related criminal activity by adults and provides children with meaningful and practical routes out of these networks. It is made up of four strands, namely, an intensive family programme to help with parenting and general family functioning; providing young people with pro-social opportunities; supporting communities to withstand gang and network influences; and targeting groomers and disrupting their networks. The first Greentown programme progress report from 2023 found that there have been notable improvements in reducing the influence of criminal networks in the trial site communities, including that children and families are better enabled to withstand the powerful attraction of network membership and to make pro-social choices. I am hoping the Greentown project will be rolled out across our communities in the future. Support is provided from An Garda Síochána and expert youth justice services specialising in family support and engaging with hard-to-reach young people.

Sentiment score: 0.35

As the Deputy knows, we are coming up to the end of our youth justice strategy and we will have a new strategy as of the end of 2027. The Greentown project has been extended. The extension of the programme has reduced the influence of criminal networks on children at risk of involvement in crime and improved the likelihood of pro-social outcomes for children who are already involved in criminal networks. We know that investment in these programmes does work, albeit in pilot and smaller models. I agree with the Deputy that this will have to be rolled out across the country, especially across large urban areas. We know, because we represent those areas, that that is where we have the problem. The Criminal Justice (Engagement of Children in Criminal Activity) Act 2024 makes it an offence for an adult to compel, coerce, direct or deceive a child for the purpose of engaging in criminal activity or induce, invite, aid, abet, counsel or procure a child to engage in criminal activity. On CAB and-----

Sentiment score: -0.15

Sorry.

Sentiment score: -0.08

I agree with the Deputy. Words like "multidisciplinary" and "multidepartmental" are often used very flippantly but education has a piece, as do criminal justice and the HSE. We, as legislators, have a piece. Supporting our local community is a part of the puzzle. We all must play our part in it. On what we can do from a community point of view, I have been to many of the projects in Ballyfermot like skate parks. The Deputy will be aware of the community safety fund, an annual grant fund that supports short- to medium-term projects which allow for the proceeds of crime to be directed back into communities. We have seen some really successful projects around the country where we use ill-gotten gains to fund innovative local projects aimed at building stronger, safer communities. I know Deputies from across the House welcome this. Since the fund launched in 2022, it has supported 127 community safety projects nationally. Over successive years the community safety fund has expanded in both reach and impact, supporting projects addressing youth engagement, domestic and gender-based violence, restorative justice, substance misuse and antisocial behaviour.

Sentiment score: 0.48