Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The community safety innovation fund is on my desk and I hope to finalise the terms of reference for the fund in the next few days. This is extremely important for many reasons. I hope that each individual community will have an opportunity to identify what its priorities are, what innovative ways it can apply to protect the community and respond to the issues in the locality. The fund will be open to community groups and organisations. I urge people to look at what already exists, how that is working and how they could potentially identify something new. This is about new innovative ways, not about filling a gap where funding does not exist elsewhere. It is not about providing current spending where perhaps there has been a drop in support. It is about new innovative ways individuals can identify for how they can help keep the community safe. Of course, individual groups can also look at the issues of domestic, sexual and gender-based violence, safe spaces and working closely with local councils here.

We have three community safety partnership pilots and a group in Drogheda, which came together following Vivian Guerin's report. In future, each individual community safety partnership will include representatives of An Garda Síochána, education, local authorities, Tusla and community services. I hope they will be able to apply to this fund, for which €2 million has been provided this year. Over the years, I hope this will increase significantly and there will be further funding for groups to apply for.