Justice:The 16 per cent increase in the Estimates of the Department of Justice is the highest in the history of the State, with next year's spend going up from €383.4 million to €445 million.
Some of this is accounted for by new bodies, such as commissions and special inquiries, including that into Sex Abuse in the Dublin Diocese, and the Garda Ombudsman Commission and Garda Inspectorate.
Expenditure on the special inquiries will almost double from €10.9 million in 2005 to €19.1 next year, while the expenditure on the Garda accountability bodies will be €11.9 million.
The Garda Complaints Board cost a quarter of that this year, about €3 million, which will be halved next year.
There is an increase in the provision for the asylum and immigration system, which is up €15 million. A third of this will go to specific integration measures for immigrants.
There is also an increase of €18.8 million in childcare provision. This is expected to lead to the provision of an additional 39,000 childcare places, one third of them in RAPID and CLAR designated areas.
Funding for juvenile offending measures is up by €1.5 million, allowing the establishment of initiatives envisaged by the 2001 Children Act.
The prisons capital budget is down significantly, from €65 million this year to €30 million next year.
This is accounted for by the fact that the new site for Mountjoy at Thornton Hall has been bought, according to the Minister.
The expenditure on salaries and expenses in the Prison Service will rise again, by 4 per cent and 8 per cent respectively, despite attempts to end the reliance on overtime. This expenditure includes the cost of the revised pay agreements reached with the Prison Officers' Association.
Capital expenditure for the courts is also down, by about a quarter. This is because the final allocation here has not yet been agreed with the Minister for Finance, Mr McDowell said, and there would be a further announcement on budget day.
The Legal Aid Board will receive an increase of 3 per cent, enabling it to keep waiting lists at bay, while the criminal legal aid bill is set to rise by 11 per cent.
Joe Costello, the Labour spokesman on Justice, welcomed the allocation for the Office of the Garda Ombudsman, but said it was disappointing there was so little increase in the allocation for services for victims of crime.