A record year for CAB in its goal of denying and depriving criminals of the proceeds of crime
Almost €10m seized from criminals
The Criminal Assets Bureau’s (CAB) Annual Report for 2023, has been published, showing a record year for CAB in its goal of denying and depriving criminals of the proceeds of committed crime.
In 2023, the value of assets under proceeds of crime cases commenced by CAB ranged in value from €10,915 to €1,456,887. Proceeds of crime actions, together with actions carried out under Revenue and Social Protection provisions, yielded in excess of €8.6 million to the Irish Exchequer in 2023.
Using the ill-gotten gains collected by CAB, the Department of Justice established the Community Safety Fund. This fund has been developed to reinvest the value of proceeds of crime, seized by CAB, directly back into local communities, which are negatively affected by crime.
€3.75 million in funding is available for local initiatives under this year’s Community Safety fund with applications closed since late July. Officials within the Department of Justice are currently processing current applications and the recipients will be announced in the coming weeks.
It is intended to support the expansion of CAB by 45% over the next 2 years, as part of the plan to tackle organised crime. The CAB Strategic Plan 2024-2027 will expand CAB’s intelligence gathering and enforcement activities.
In addition, new legislation is being brought forward in the coming weeks to strengthen CAB, with the Proceeds of Crime (Amendment) Bill 2023, seen as improving CAB’s ability to carry out its work.
Measures include:
The reduction from seven years to two years in the time between an order being made that assets are the proceeds of crime and a final disposal order being available in respect of those assets.
Provision for immediate and automatic appointment of a receiver to deprive respondents of the benefit of the assets.
The limitation of respondent’s ability to reopen the question of whether assets are proceeds of crime at the point of a disposal order being sought.
Enhanced restraint and asset detention powers prior to the High Court process.
Improved domestic and international information exchange powers.
Eradicating organised crime is central to building safer, stronger communities and expanding CAB is seen as key to this goal.
Funding secured to support safer communities and modernised immigration system.
€2.5 billion for An Garda Síochána – over half a billion euro increase on 2020.
DSGBV funding trebled.
€3.2m to support Youth Justice Strategy including two new Youth Diversion Programmes.
A record €3.61 billion for current expenditure and €310 million for capital investment was allocated in the budget yesterday, for the Justice sector, which will be targeted to enhance public safety, improve crime prevention, ensure safe prisons, and drive end-to-end modernisation across Ireland’s immigration systems.
The major investment of almost €4 billion across the Justice Sector, will equip front-line Gardaí with the necessary tools and resources to strengthen crime prevention and detection; support the rollout of 36 Community Safety Partnerships nationwide; and strengthen efforts under the Zero Tolerance Strategy to combat domestic, sexual, and gender-based violence (DSGBV). In addition, significant funding is allocated for targeted road safety initiatives and to recruit additional prison staff and alleviate the acute pressures of overcrowding within our prisons.
A key focus in this Budget is on the reforming of family law. Over €11m has been allocated to increase staff and improve our Courts Service. An additional €3m will enable the use of expert reports as outlined in the Family Justice Strategy to ensure the voice of each child impacted by family break ups can be heard and to safeguard their needs within the justice system. Through the enactment of the Family Courts Bill, the Minister will move to establish the Family District Court, the Family Circuit Court and the Family High Court, in order to transform our family justice system and make it more user friendly for families.
Budget Highlights
An Garda Síochána.
Garda funding has increased by over €500m (up 27% since 2020), bringing the total budget to €2.48 billion.
This will provide funding to recruit between 800 and 1,000 new Gardaí, along with 150 Garda staff and move towards 1,000 Garda reserves.
Garda overtime has been boosted by 13%, rising to €150 million, to enhance high-visibility policing efforts and serious crime investigation.
The Garda trainee allowance will have almost doubled to €354 per week, effective from 1st October 2024 (up from €184 in 2023).
€1.5 million has been allocated for Garda workforce wellbeing measures, including medical expenses.
€5m to be provided for Public Order Units including two new water cannons, crowd control barriers, expansion of the dog unit and more body armour for frontline Gardaí.
€9 million in additional funding to enhance road safety.
Capital Investments.
€100m of funding for ICT to equip Gardaí with the necessary tools to enhance crime prevention and detection, including Body-Worn cameras and the development of a digital evidence management system which will facilitate the nationwide roll-out of body worn cameras and the introduction of facial recognition technology.
€62m investment in the Garda estate across the country with major projects progressed in 2025 including Portlaoise, Macroom, Clonmel and Newcastlewest.
Fleet upgrades, including new public order vehicles and investment in a range of specialist vehicles to support modern policing.
The delivery of a new helicopter in Q1 2025 for the important work of the Garda Air Support Unit.
Domestic, Sexual, and Gender-Based Violence (DSGBV) & Community Safety.
DSGBV funding is increasing to €70m. This is more than treble the funding for DSGBV services when Minister McEntee first became Minister for Justice, and a further significant increase for 2025.
Increased funding for Cuan to €67m including additional resources to support the implementation of the Zero Tolerance strategy, with funding for 80 additional refuge spaces.
€800k for Cuan will provide for research and data analytics to develop an impact-led approach for evidence and knowledge development to achieve effective DSGBV prevention, protection, prosecution, and policy co-ordination.
A further targeted open call will be launched in 2025 to allow services to come forward with proposals.
€9.5 million allocated for nationwide Community Safety Partnerships and the establishment of a National Office for Community Safety and the Community Safety Innovation Fund.
An expanded Youth Justice Strategy with an increase of total funding by €3.2m and 10.8% bringing the total to €33 million.
Prisons and Probation.
Record funding of €525m has been secured to increase prison capacity and tackle overcrowding. This is an increase of €79m or 18%.
Recruitment of 150 Prison Officers in addition to the 240 Prison Officers recruited in 2024.
An additional €6.2 million to fund 130,000 additional staff hours in our Prisons.
€53m in Capital Funding which will provide for the completion of 155 new prison spaces by the end of 2024 as part of a programme of works.
The Probation Service will receive an additional €4 million bringing the total budget to over €60m to expand crime diversion programmes, support step down facilities, restorative justice, and community-based alternatives to imprisonment.
Immigration Modernisation.
€25m package for end-to-end investment in the immigration system including Service Delivery, International Protection Office, International Protection Appeals Tribunal and the Legal Aid Board. €2m is provided for ICT capital expenditure.
Significant additional resources will be directed to streamline the international protection process, with approximately 400 further staff to be recruited. This will provide for over 25,000 IPO decisions compared to over 14,000 cases in 2024.
Included in the package is €5m in increased investment in digital systems to modernise immigration systems, reduce processing times, increase removals (including with a new charter plane service), and strengthen border security.
Readiness work for the introduction of the EU Asylum and Migration Pact requirements in 2026.
Courts.
€11.1m to Courts Service which will include 50 additional staff to support the expanding Judiciary bringing its budget to over €195m.
This funding will help reduce backlogs and ensure quicker administration of justice.
It includes €2m to support modernisation measures including outsourced jury minding to free up thousands of Garda hours for frontline policing services.
Separately, an additional funding of €3m is to provide a pilot project to support the voice of children in family justice proceedings, including the recruitment of 8 staff as well as other services to assist in these proceedings.
The budget for criminal legal aid will increase in 2025 by over €9m which will include an 8% increase in fees from 1 January 2025. This is in addition to the 10% increase in fees secured in Budget 2024.
Funding the Transformation resulting from the Policing, Security and Community Safety Act 2024.
A total funding package of €28m provided for new bodies including Fiosrú (replacing GSOC), the Policing and Community Safety Authority, and the Office of the Independent Examiner.
Together with 36 Community Safety Partnerships nationwide and the National Office of Community Safety will strengthen effective cross-agency working in partnership with local communities on public safety.
Maximum jail sentences for those using knifes and other identified offensive weapons increased.
It was announced today (Monday) that a Commencement Order has been signed under the Courts, Civil Law, Criminal Law and Superannuation (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2024 which will increase the maximum sentences for knife related offences, with effect from September 30th, 2024.
The Commencement Order gives effect to Part 9 of the Courts, Civil Law, Criminal Law and Superannuation (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2024, which amends the Firearms and Offensive Weapons Act 1990 to increase the maximum penalties for the following offences under that Act:
Section 9(5) offence of possession in a public place of an article intended to cause injury to, incapacitate or intimidate a person: increased from 5 years to 7 years.
Section 10 offence of trespass with a knife, weapon of offence or other article which has a blade or sharp point: increased from 5 years to 7 years.
Section 11 offence of production of an article capable of inflicting serious injury: increased from 5 years to 7 years.
Section 12 offence of manufacture, importation, sale, hire or loan of prescribed offensive weapons: increased from 7 years to 10 years.
These changes in the law follow recommendations from the knife crime sub-group of the Expert Forum on Anti-Social Behaviour, established in 2020, with first chaired meeting only taking place on September 29th 2021. Four sub-groups have now been established by the Forum to consider the specific issues of the misuse of scramblers and quadbikes, knife crime, responses to Anti-social behaviour (ASB) impacts on housing complexes managed by Local Authorities (LA) or Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs), and the powers available to An Garda Síochána in relation to public order offences. Members of the Forum are drawn from a number of State agencies, including An Garda Síochána, the Probation Service and key Government Departments, as well as a broad representation of community, business, academic and other experts.
Coimisiún na Meán designated as the competent authority to impose penalties under the EU Terrorist Content Online Regulation.
Coimisiún na Meán now has the power to impose administrative fines on hosting service providers for infringements of the Terrorism Content Online Regulation.
Terrorist Content Online Regulation provides for speedy removal of terrorist content online following the issue of removal orders by An Garda Síochána.
Coimisiún na Meán (Irish: Media Commission) has been designated as the competent Irish authority under the EU Terrorist Content Online Regulation (2021/784) to impose penalties on hosting service providers who do not comply with their obligations under that Regulation.
Coimisiún na Meán will now have the power to impose administrative fines on hosting service providers up to 4% of global turnover, for infringements of the Terrorism Content Online Regulation. This designation follows the commencement of Part 7 of the Courts, Civil Law, Criminal Law and Superannuation (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2024, which provides Coimisiún na Meán with the necessary statutory powers.
The Terrorist Content Online Regulation provides an EU wide mechanism for the speedy removal of terrorist content online, by hosting service providers following the issue of removal orders by EU law enforcement agencies. An Garda Síochána is the authority competent in Ireland for issuing removal orders.
Terrorist content refers to material shared online that, directly or indirectly glorifies terrorist acts; advocates the commission of terrorist offences; solicits a person or a group of persons to commit or contribute to the commission of a terrorist offences or to participate in the activities of a terrorist group; provides instruction on the making or use of explosives, firearms or other weapons; or constitutes a threat to commit a terrorist offence.
Almost 100 cases prosecuted under Coco’s Law have now been published.
Legislation criminalising the sharing of, or threatening to share intimate images without a person’s consent, and distributing, publishing or sending a threatening or grossly offensive communication to another person, introduced in 2021 has been reviewed.
Almost 100 cases have been prosecuted by the DPP over the review period, with charges from An Garda Síochána increasing year-on-year.
Success of national awareness campaigns in informing public of the legislation.
The legislation criminalises the sharing of, or threatening to share intimate images, without a person’s consent, with or without intent to cause harm to the victim.
The Act also seeks to target other areas of harmful communications by creating a new offence of distributing, publishing, or sending a threatening or grossly offensive communication with intent to cause harm and to extend the current offence of harassment to deal with communications about a person, as well as communications to a person.
The review was carried out by the Department of Justice and found positive early indicators in terms of prosecutions taken, the number of reports of intimate image abuse made to a hotline for illegal content, and general awareness of the legislation.
The review found that the Office of Director of Public Prosecutions had taken a total of 99 cases in respect of section 2, 3 or 4 of the Act, between its commencement and the end of 2023. This included:
A total of 23 cases prosecuted on indictment in the Circuit Court.
The DPP consented to summary disposal on guilty plea for eight cases.
The DPP directed summary disposal on 68 cases.
One case was prosecuted on indictment in the Central Criminal Court.
The review also found that the number of charges issued by An Garda Síochána had risen between commencement in 2021 and the end of 2023. In 2021, there were 22 charges brought. In 2022, that rose to 95, and in 2023 it rose again to 113.
The review noted independent research from August 2021, which found that 69% thought it was against the law to share intimate images without consent, and 51% thought it was against the law to threaten to share intimate images.
A follow up piece of research conducted in November 2023 found that those figures had jumped to 97% and 96%, after the public awareness campaign.
As part of the awareness campaign, the Department of Justice partnered with Hotline.ie to provide a widely accessible reporting mechanism for victims of intimate image abuse. Once illegal content is reported to Hotline, their experts assess the report and decide on next steps.
Any online service provider served by Hotline.ie with an intimate image abuse notice is responsible for removing the content at source.
The review found that, between September 2021 and December 2023, almost 1,500 reports were made to Hotline.ie, which, after assessment, were found to be intimate image abuse.
Some 1,006 of these were images or videos shared without the person’s consent via publicly accessible web-locations;. Hotline.ie was able to get 92% removed.
Hotline.ie also received more than 400 reports relating to threat to share intimate images. This included 366 cases of sexual extortion and 27 threats to share intimate images for harassment purposes.
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