Community safety fund  'step in the right direction' in fighting crime scourge

Anna Quigley and Tony Geoghegan of CityWide Drugs Crisis Campaign with President Michael D Higgins. Ms Quigley said they had long campaigned for such a funding mechanism. Picture: Jim Berkeley

A Government decision to establish a community safety fund has been welcomed by local activists.

Justice Minister Helen McEntee announced that she and Public Expenditure Minister Michael McGrath have agreed, in principle, to set up the fund.

“The community safety innovation fund established by Minister McGrath and I will reflect the success of An Garda Síochána and the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) in seizing the proceeds of crime and will fund projects communities themselves know will help in improving their safety,” said Ms McEntee.

“My Justice Plan 2021 committed to breaking the link between the gangs and our vulnerable young people, and to strengthening community safety.” 

She said communities across the country are doing vital work in ensuring crime does not take hold in their areas and among their young.

Mr McGrath said the fund will allow the planned local community safety partnerships to apply for financial support for measures to protect their community.

The new partnerships, to be set up in every local authority area, are a key element of the forthcoming Policing and Community Safety Bill, which will give effect to the recommendations of the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland, which reported in September 2018.

Anna Quigley, co-ordinator of the CityWide Drugs Crisis Campaign, said the idea to seize assets from drug dealers originated with the late Tony Gregory TD in 1995 and led to the creation of CAB a year later.

She said that since then communities have been campaigning for the money seized to be returned to them to help to improve the lives of the people most affected.

“So, we very much welcome this new fund as a step in the right direction, and we need this to happen without any further delay,” said Ms Quigley, noting the announcement was a decision to establish the fund in principle.

She said that over €170m has been returned to the State by CAB since it was set up.

She noted that, in Scotland, half of the assets recovered are allocated to fund local initiatives to tackle drugs and drug-related issues in communities that have been undermined by serious and organised crime.

There is an urgent and immediate need to invest resources now to provide meaningful alternatives for our young people who are being drawn into the drugs trade and more effective responses for the people who are living with drug-related intimidation and its consequences.” 

Mick Lacey, chair of the Mid West Regional Drug and Alcohol Forum, said: “This is absolutely fantastic, as there’s a lot of places these resources could be used. For example, there’s an unfinished community centre in Mary’s Park.” 

He said the fund should go towards the development of “good relationships between guards and people on the ground”, saying this was improving in Limerick.

“There should be a focus on the national drugs strategy, particularly in the areas of community development, community projects, and community workers,” he said. 

“Drugs generate wealth in deprived areas, it gives people an existential reason to get up in the morning if there’s no money coming from anything else.

“The kids are using drugs, they are selling drugs, and they are buying stuff in the shops and there’s a multiplier effect in the community. 

'You need an alternative'

"It’s like a resource, so you need an alternative to that.” 

Sinn Féin TD for Cork North Central, Thomas Gould, said there is a lack of investment in communities where criminality and gangs and the drugs trade exist.

He said the cutbacks to local community projects, youth projects, and community policing during the recession have “never been reinstated”.

As a result, he said communities have seen a “more brazen, much more aggressive criminality” in recent years and open drug dealing in different parts of the country.

He said the fund will be vital right across the country, particularly in Dublin, Cork, and Limerick, with communities “crying out for help”.

Welcoming the fund, he said it is only a “tiny part” of what is required and that a co-ordinated plan by gardaí and the departments of Health and Education is needed.

The gardaí have to be at the heart of this, and they need the resources.” 

Johnny Connolly, a researcher at University of Limerick, specialising in drug markets and communities, said the fund is a “really important and innovative idea”.

“One of the things communities have long argued for are local initiatives to target the obvious displays of wealth visible in their communities," he said. 

"This, in part, reflects the disillusionment and damage that can be caused when such obviously illicit sources of wealth are flaunted openly.” 

He said that when young people have few legitimate or pro-social opportunities, such displays operate as a “real incentive” to engaging in drug dealing and criminal networks.

“Furthermore, although drug and asset seizures and prosecution of key players are important, and are indicators of success from an An Garda Síochána/criminal justice perspective, it is less clear what impact they have locally,” said Mr Connolly.

“However, a youth club or project or community centre funded through the proceeds of seized assets would be a visible symbol that the State acknowledges the damage being done in communities as a consequence of the drugs trade and it would be a far more meaningful outcome from a a community perspective.”