AN extra £10 million was added to the Garda budget to cover overtime payments to gardai sent to patrol Border roads during the BSE cattle blockade last year.
The blockade, in which gardai mounted checkpoints on every Border crossing, was put up during the summer but wound down in early autumn and replaced with a system of mobile garda and military patrols.
The increase in this year's budget is to offset the extra costs incurred in the 1996 Garda budget.
The bill for Garda salaries and allowances will rise from £308.3 million in 1996 to £326 million in 1997.
The £448 million budget for the Garda, up 5 per cent on last year, also includes £2.5 million to buy a helicopter and fixed wing aircraft for the new airborne wing.
The Budget includes provision for £3.8 million for the Criminal Assets Bureau, set up last year with a staff of gardai and revenue commissioners to find and sequester the assets of drugs traffickers and other criminals.
In the overall justice budget, spending on prisons has increased by 30 per cent to cover the expansion of the service to allow an increase in the prison population from just over 2,000 to just under 3,000.
The prisons building budget increases from £18.4 million in 1996 to £49.2 million in 1997.
There are relatively minor in creases in expenditure on the probation service and on others alternatives to imprisonment. The probation and welfare services expenditure is around £13 million compared with around £140 million on the prison service.
Spending on the courts is up by 13 per cent to cover the expansion of the service throughout this year.
The Minister for Justice, Mrs Owen, yesterday said the increased courts budget will allow completion of new courthouses in Naas and Carrick on Shannon, two conversions to house additional courts, and upgrading of courts in Tallaght, Listowel, Portlaoise, Ennis, Portarlington and Cork.
Mrs Owens increased grant aid to the Association for Victim Support from £150,000 to £280,000.